Harry Talks Losing His Virginity, Using Psychic to Talk to Mom

To say Prince Harry opens up in his new memoir is surely an understatement. In addition to revealing a physical altercation with his brother, he discusses feeling the "absence of love and affection in our home" as a child, using cocaine at 17, losing his virginity in a field behind a pub, killing Taliban fighters in Afghanistan—and that's not all. The book's official release is Tuesday, but media outlets got their hands on copies after some bookstores in Spain accidentally started selling Spare on Thursday. It has since been pulled from shelves, but its contents are no longer secret. Standout details:

• Losing his virginity: Harry writes that his first time was a "humiliating episode … in a field, just behind a very busy pub" and "no doubt someone had seen us," per the BBC. He adds his partner was an older woman who "really liked horses" and treated him like a "young stallion."
• Drug use: Harry writes of using cocaine, magic mushrooms, and marijuana beginning at the age of 17, adding his main goal was "to feel. To be different," per CNN. In a clip from his forthcoming interview with ITV's Tom Bradby, the prince says this behavior is "important to acknowledge," per the Guardian.

• War kills: The former helicopter pilot claims to have killed 25 Taliban fighters, adding he viewed them not as people but as "chess pieces removed from the board," per the BBC. A former army colonel tells the outlet that such "ill-judged" comments could threaten Harry's security and cause some to "attempt revenge."
• Diana speaks from the dead: Harry writes that he used a woman with "powers" to speak with his late mother, recognizing the "high-percentage chance of humbuggery," per CNN. "Your mother says that you are living the life that she couldn't live," the woman told him, per the BBC. "You're living the life she wanted for you."
• Recreating the fatal drive: Harry replicated his mother's last drive through Paris a decade later in 2007 and was apparently left questioning how she could've died. Though his driver took the same route at the same speed, Harry writes that he "barely" felt "the bump that supposedly sent Mummy's Mercedes veering off course," per the BBC.

• On Camilla: Harry writes that both he and William urged their father not to marry "the other woman," per CNN. Harry writes that the brothers were willing to accept Camilla into the family if she made Charles happy, but feared she would be a "wicked stepmother."
• On William: Harry says he told William that he felt Diana had guided him to Markle; he says William responded, "I wouldn't say that." Harry also writes that he didn't believe his brother when he told him he wanted him to be happy. Another tidbit: William and Kate were apparently "regular—nay, religious—viewers of Suits," the show in which Markle starred, per Fox News.
• The fight: In a clip from his ITV interview, Harry says he saw "the red mist" in his brother during a physical altercation over Markle in 2019. "I talk about the red mist that I had for so many years, and I saw this red mist in him," he says, per the Guardian. "He wanted me to hit him back, but I chose not to." He adds, "I want reconciliation but, first, there needs to be some accountability."

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• 'I was probably bigoted': In a clip of a CBS News interview set to air Sunday, Harry says he was "incredibly naive" about how the UK press would treat his relationship with Markle, per the Guardian. "I had no idea the British press were so bigoted" until "the race element" was "jumped on straight away." "Hell, I was probably bigoted before the relationship with Meghan," he tells Anderson Cooper. "Put it this way, I didn't see what I now see."
• Queen Elizabeth II's death: Harry writes that he learned of his grandmother's death from the BBC's website as his flight arrived in the UK. Taken to see the Queen's body, "I whispered that I hoped she was happy and that she was with Grandfather now," he writes, per CNN.

(Read more Prince Harry stories.)