In both the Netflix docuseries and his memoir Spare, Prince Harry addressed one of the worst moments of his life, the “colonialist and native” costume party in 2005 where he “dressed up” in a rented Nazi uniform. In the Netflix series, Harry called the costume one of the biggest mistakes of his life and he framed it as a moment where he had to choose to learn and grow and try to get to a more righteous and aware path. In Spare, Harry gave additional, never-before-heard background on choosing the Nazi uniform, which was that Prince William and then-Kate Middleton “howled with laughter” at the uniform and told him he should definitely wear it. Well, more than a month after Spare was released, apparently William is engorged with rage about Harry spilling those details. William is mad that… Harry has been holding onto that story for years? My dude, you are not making the point you think you’re making. From the Daily Beast:

The Nazi uniform story in Spare: The friend told The Daily Beast: “It just demonstrates how utterly f–ked the relationship is that Harry resorted to dragging up this thing that literally happened almost 20 years ago. William was completely gobsmacked by it.” The friend did not suggest the story, as told in Harry’s memoir, Spare, was untrue…However the friend said William was stunned by Harry deciding to tell the story, having apparently been “nurturing this grievance for almost two decades.”

It’s not Peg’s fault!! William’s office at Kensington Palace have made no comment on Harry’s book and said they did not wish to comment to The Daily Beast for this story. The friend who spoke to The Daily Beast said: “Whatever Harry wore to a fancy dress party could never possibly be William’s fault.” They added that William was stunned by “the realization that Harry has been nurturing this grievance for almost two decades.”

The Keens would never deign to read Spare: The friend said their understanding was that William and Kate had not read the book but said they would “of course” have been apprised of its contents by their advisers and would likely have read many media reports on it. “You can understand why William has his reservations about Harry attending King Charles’ coronation,” the friend said—referring to Harry’s older brother being the apparent sticking point in getting Harry and Meghan to the ceremony in early May.

Why the Nazi uniform story out of all of the Spare stories? Of course, attention will now turn as to why it is this particular story that has so got under William’s skin. There was no shortage of arguably much more damaging brickbats thrown at William in Spare, after all, including allegations that he physically assaulted Harry and that he and Kate acted dismissively towards him and Meghan on countless occasions. Asked if Harry recounting the incident had upset William more than any of the other accusations made in the book, including the aforementioned claim that William pushed him to the floor in a physical fight, the friend said, “There is plenty for William to not like in the book. But he found it particularly astonishing that Harry wanted to reopen this issue, and rather than to accept responsibility for it, to try and blame William and Catherine for it, when it was clearly no-one’s fault but his own.”

[From The Daily Beast]

One of my takeaways from Spare and the various ways Harry described William was that William seems like a guy who smokes his own product, you know what I mean? William lives in his own sheltered little world, an echo chamber full of rage and sycophantic yes-men who regurgitate familiar talking points to him because that’s what he wants to hear. Like, I actually believe that William believes many of the lies coming from his own office, some of which he even started. My point is that I halfway believe that William is too lazy to sit down and read Spare, so the content of the book is being filtered to him by those Tory political operatives grooming him to be the king they need.

Anyway, Harry didn’t “blame” William and Kate for the Nazi uniform thing – what Harry has said and written is that he owned his choice for nearly two decades, and people should know that William and Kate thought the Nazi uniform was hysterically funny. It’s not “this is William and Kate’s fault,” it’s “they’re in it too.” Harry also treated the story with perspective, because (clearly) William has done a lot of sh-t to him over the years.

Cover courtesy of The Sun, additional photos courtesy of Avalon Red.