Prince Harry Blames Prince William and Kate Middleton for Him Wearing Nazi Costume

Prince Harry reportedly blames Prince William and Kate Middleton for his infamous 2005 Nazi costume scandal. In a leaked excerpt of his new memoir Spare, Harry claims his older brother and sister-in-law laughed at him when they saw him dressed with a swastika for a party. Harry also discussed the scandal in the Netflix documentary series, Harry & Meghan, recalling how "ashamed" he felt.

In January 2005, a then-20-year-old Harry attended a costume party wearing a Nazi uniform, complete with a red swastika armband. The Sun published a photo of Harry from the party on its front page, with the headline "Harry the Nazi." William also attended the party, which had a "native and colonial" theme, wearing a homemade lion outfit.

Harry writes in Spare that he had two costume choices, a pilot or a Nazi, according to the excerpt obtained by Page Six. "I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. Nazi uniform, they said," Harry wrote. He then went home and tried the uniform on for them, and they laughed. "They both howled. Worse than Willy's leotard outfit! Way more ridiculous! Which, again, was the point."

Harry also surprisingly brought up the scandal in Harry & Meghan, calling it one of the "biggest mistakes" of his life. "I felt so ashamed afterward. All I wanted to do was make it right," Harry said, adding that it had a "profound impact" on him. After the scandal, Harry met with a rabbi in London and went to Berlin to meet with a Holocaust survivor. "I could have just ignored it and just got on and probably made the same mistakes over and over in my life," Harry said. "But I learned from that."

Although that comment could explain why Harry feels the need to continue talking about this major scandal in his life, a "senior publishing source" told Page Six it was strange that he wrote about it. "It's strange as you would think that Harry would take ownership of this and just move on and not drag his brother into it, but he makes it clear that he feels strongly about William's role in the scandal," the source said.

Spare also is not the first time William's alleged role in the scandal has come to the surface. In 2020, historian Robert Lacey traced the start of Harry and William's relationship fraying to the incident. Harry was frustrated that he took the brunt of public outrage, Lacey wrote in his 2020 book Battle of Brothers.

"The young prince began re-evaluating his elder brother's involvement and the unfairness of William's subsequent emergence smelling of roses," Lacey wrote. "It made Harry feel resentful and even alienated." Lacey claimed William tried to "coax" Harry into "errant and self-destructive ways." They "barely spoke" after the scandal, Lacey wrote, adding that Harry "resented the fact that William got away so lightly."

In another leaked excerpt The Guardian obtained, Harry claims William physically attacked him over Meghan Markle in 2019. William allegedly called Markle "difficult," "rude," and "abrasive." Harry described this as his brother repeating media narratives about his wife. William then "grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor," he wrote. "I landed on the dog's bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out." Harry claims the fight left him with a visible back injury. Spare will be released on Jan. 10.