Prince Harry will be celebrating his birthday milestone with his family in California and to commemorate the British royal turning 40 we’ve put together 40 surprising facts about King Charles’ youngest son.
A royal childhood
- Harry was born on 15 September 1984, to Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. He was given the full name Henry Charles Albert David, and at birth was third in line to the throne.
- He was christened three months later at St George’s Chapel in Windsor, where he would later be married. One notable absence was Princess Anne and then-husband Captain Mark Phillips, who did not attend Harry’s christening because they had organised a hunting party at their Gloucestershire estate.
- One of his godparents is artist Bryan Organ, who painted one of the few official portraits ever of Diana.
- His first overseas tour was with his parents to Italy in 1985 at just eight months of age, and he attended his first official royal engagement at four, attending the Beating Retreat parade, a military ceremonial event, in 1989.
- While he may not use it these days, William’s favourite nickname for Harry since childhood has been ‘Harold’.
Education: “Not the university type”
- Like older brother, William, he attended Mrs Mynor’s Nursery School in well-to-do Notting Hill. This was followed by the Wetherby School and Ludgrove School and finally, Eton College.
- While at Eton, he tried to fit in as best he could. ‘Harry had normal friends; he used to go to people’s birthday parties. He used to go out with people in London and go to clubs. He had bodyguards but they’d kind of hang in the background,’ a classmate once revealed.
- He knew he wasn’t cut out for university early on. ‘I just couldn’t picture myself spending years bent over a book. My Eton housemaster couldn’t either. He’d told me straight-out: “You’re not the university type, Harry.”
- Between Eton and serving in the military, Harry was sent to a cattle station in Australia. He learnt the ropes at Tooloombilla Station in Queensland. Partly, it is thought, to help him get over his use of cannabis and alcohol as a rebellious young royal. ‘Being a jackaroo required stamina, but it also demanded a certain artistry.’
His mother
- Harry attributes some of the more rambunctious bits of his personality to his mother. ‘I always remember her laugh, her cheeky laugh. Her always saying to me, “You can get in trouble, just don’t get caught.” I’ll always be that cheeky person inside.’
- Harry was only 12 when his mother, Diana, died in a car crash in Paris in August 1997. ‘I was in shock, you know?’ he later recounted to US journalist Anderson Cooper. ‘Twelve years old. Sort of… 7, 7.30 in the morning, early. Your father comes in, sits on your bed, puts his hand on your knee and tells you, “There’s been an accident.” I couldn’t believe.’
- The world will never forget the sight of Harry walking behind his mother’s coffin as it made its way to St Paul’s Cathedral in London, next to his brother William. It’s something he’s had mixed feelings about since. ‘I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.’
- Also fixed in the world’s memory is the note written with his brother William that sat atop the coffin. It had a single word on the envelope, ‘Mummy’.
Military
- Harry did his cadet training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, graduating in 2006. After this, he officially entered the military as part of the Blues and Royals, within the Household Cavalry.
- Harry ultimately served in the British Army for a decade. He rose to the rank of Apache helicopter commander and was known as Captain Harry Wales. Harry was deployed to Afghanistan on two occasions during his time in the Army.
- In his book Spare he reflected on killing 25 enemy fighters while on his military tours. ‘It wasn’t a statistic that filled me with pride but nor did it make me ashamed,’ he notes. ‘When I was plunged into the heat and confusion of battle, I didn’t think about those as 25 people. You can’t kill people if you see them as people. They were chess pieces taken off the board, bad guys eliminated before they kill good guys.’
- While no longer involved in the military, Harry’s biggest legacy is his development of the Invictus Games. It is an initiative open to injured or sick ex-servicepeople to provide something positive and help with rehabilitation. Harry was inspired after seeing the US-based Warrior Games, a similar set-up.
- Until his famous split from the royal family, Harry’s biggest scandal occurred in 2005 when he attended a costume party in the uniform of the Nazi Afrika Korps from World War II. He later apologised. ‘It was a poor choice.’
- He also made headlines in 2012 after playing strip billiards with friends in Las Vegas. Photos were later leaked to the press of a naked Harry standing by a pool table. According to one who was there, ‘There was a pool table and he was playing air guitar with pool sticks. He was screaming out, “Somebody get me a glove! I’m going to do a Michael Jackson impression!” ’
- In 2002, during Harry’s wild-boy days when he used cannabis and drank heavily, his father Charles arranged for him to visit a rehab clinic for heroin users, Featherstone Lodge in south London, to try to shock some sense into him.
- With a lifelong dislike of the paparazzi, Harry lashed out in 2004 after a photographer tried to grab a pic of him leaving a nightclub in the wee hours. In the ensuing scuffle, Harry got hit in the face by the camera, and the snapper’s lip was cut.
- Actor Dominic West is no longer a pal of Harry’s after revealing in an interview that when they undertook a charity walk to the South Pole in 2013, the prince told ‘eye-wateringly rude jokes… for the non-soldier like me, it was quite shocking’ – and drank champagne out of one of the prosthetic legs of Duncan Slater, who was part of the trek. ‘I said too much in a press conference, and so we didn’t speak after that,’ the Crown star later confessed.
Love, marriage & family
- After their initial blind date introduction in 2016, Harry’s second meeting with Suits actor Meghan Markle was on 4 July – so he brought along cupcakes to mark US Independence Day.
- In November 2017, Harry proposed to Meghan on the grounds of Kensington Palace. He set up 15 electric candles, put down a blanket, and had a bottle of champagne ready, as well as Meghan’s rescue beagle Guy in attendance.
- Harry helped design the yellow gold engagement ring for Meghan, which features a central diamond from Botswana, as well as two diamonds from Diana’s collection on either side.
- Prince Harry picked flowers to go into Meghan’s wedding bouquet from the garden at Kensington Palace.
- For his big day, Harry wore the frock coat uniform of the Blues and Royals, made by tailors at Dege & Skinner on Savile Row. ‘I chose the frock coat as a uniform, with permission from my grandmother, because I think it’s one of the smartest Household Cavalry uniforms.’
- Harry personally invited actor Idris Elba to DJ at his wedding reception. ‘I was like, “Is this a joke? Are you joking?” And he’s like, serious,’ the Luther star reveals.
- The world discovered Harry was to be a dad during his and Meghan’s trip to Sydney in 2018, when they announced they were expecting their first child.
- Harry and Meghan’s son Prince Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was born on 6 May 2019, while their second child, daughter Princess Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, arrived just over two years later, on June 4, 2021.
- Prince Harry was not only present at the birth of Lilibet, but helped deliver her, according to his autobiography.
Split from the royals
- After holidaying in Canada, Harry and Meghan made a shocking announcement in early 2020: ‘We intend to step back as “senior” members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.’
- The late Queen Elizabeth confirmed the news with her own official statement, noting: ‘Although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working Members of the Royal Family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family.’
- After spending more extended time in Canada, Harry and Meghan moved to her native California, staying at actor-director Tyler Perry’s home, before moving to Montecito.
- Harry later revealed to Oprah Winfrey that it was Meghan who helped him picture a life away from the world he’d been brought up within. ‘I didn’t see a way out. I was trapped but I didn’t know I was trapped.’
Current life & work
- Home for Harry, Meghan and the family is now a nine-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion in LA’s wealthy enclave of Montecito, rumoured to be worth upwards of $14 million. The property also features a guest house and a children’s cottage.
- While Harry doesn’t necessarily have a regular day job now, he does hold the position of chief impact officer for the US-based personal and business coaching company BetterUp.
- Another role he counts on his CV is founder of Travalyst, a travel company he created in 2019 to promote sustainability within the industry.
- Polo is a lifelong passion of Harry’s, and he regularly plays with his team Los Padres, alongside good friend Nacho Figueras, training at the nearby Santa Barbara Polo Club.
- His favourite fast food in LA is the popular burger chain In-N-Out. ‘There’s one at the halfway point between LA and our neck of the woods,’ Meghan has explained. ‘They know our order.’
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