(1984-)

Who Is Prince Harry?

Prince Henry of Wales, also known as Prince Harry, is the second son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Princess Diana. After enduring the death of his mother in 1997, he occasionally acted out and found himself in the tabloids for embarrassing events. Prince Harry embarked on a decade-long stint in the military in 2005, seeing active service time in Afghanistan, and is involved in numerous charitable causes. In May 2018, he married American actress Meghan Markle, with whom he had son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, and a daughter, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. In January 2020, the couple announced they were stepping back from their senior roles in the royal family.

Family Life

As the second son of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, Prince Harry is currently fifth in line to the English throne, behind his father, older brother William and William’s three children. He grew up under intense media scrutiny, having his personal tragedies as well as his antics and gaffes as the subject of numerous news reports.

His mother once described Prince Harry as “very artistic and sporty.” At an early age, he developed an interest in riding and hunting. While the family lived in Kensington Palace during the week, they often spent the weekends at Highgrove House, their family’s estate in Gloucestershire. Their mother strove to give both her sons “as normal a life as possible” despite their privileged position in British society. To this end, Prince Harry attended Mrs. Mynors’ nursery school in London’s Notting Hill neighborhood. Princess Diana also took Prince Harry and his brother to amusement parks, fast-food restaurants and other places frequented by other children their age.

Growing Up Under the Spotlight

Photographers were on hand as his parents dropped Prince Harry off for his first day of school in September 1987. According to Ingrid Seward’s William & Harry, the young prince had a difficult time adjusting to school initially. Despite his parents’ increasingly strained marriage, he became known for his happy-go-lucky disposition as a child. Prince Harry also developed an interest in all things military as he matured.

Early Education

In 1989, Prince Harry enrolled at the Wetherby School, where his older brother William was already a student. He then followed his brother to the Ludgrove School, a boarding school in Berkshire, in 1992. Around this time, he was reportedly informed of his parents’ impending separation, which was officially announced that December. The couple divorced in 1996.

After the separation, Prince Harry and Prince William spent their school holidays dividing their time between their parents. They spent time at Highgrove with their father, enjoying outdoor pursuits, as well as going on official trips and vacations abroad. With their mother, they engaged in a variety of activities from going on tropical holidays to visiting AIDS clinics and homeless shelters.

Princess Diana’s Tragic Death

Following Princess Diana’s shocking death from a car accident on August 31, 1997, Prince Harry remained at Balmoral for several days, mourning in seclusion with his family. He then traveled to London with his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and his brother, to prepare for Princess Diana’s funeral. On September 6, 1997, Prince Harry walked past thousands of people who had gathered to say goodbye to the woman many had dubbed “the people’s princess.” He trailed behind his mother’s coffin in the funeral procession along with his brother, father, and grandfather, Prince Phillip.

After the service, Prince Harry and other family members traveled to Althorp, his mother’s family estate in Northampton owned by his uncle Charles, the 9th Earl of Spencer. His mother’s body was laid to rest on an island in the middle of a lake on the grounds there.

Struggling with this tremendous loss, Prince Harry suffered from nightmares about his mother’s death for a time, according to Christopher Andersen’s Diana’s Boys. He returned to Ludgrove a short time after the funeral. During his next school break, Prince Harry traveled with his father to Botswana and South Africa. The trip lifted his spirit and gave him a chance to mingle with the members of the Spice Girls pop group during a concert there.

Teenage Challenges

Back at school, Prince Harry faced some academic challenges. It was decided that he would spend an extra year at Ludgrove before applying to Eton College. All of his extra efforts paid off, as he passed the entrance exam with flying colors. He began his studies there in 1998.

That same year, Prince Harry and Prince William demonstrated their cheeky sense of humor with a surprise 50th birthday party for their father, which featured some comedy sketches poking fun at Prince Charles. Actors Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson were all part of the act. Around this time, the princes also met their future stepmother Camilla Parker Bowles — the woman that their father had been involved with on and off for years.

Like some other teenagers, Prince Harry liked to party. He reportedly engaged in underage drinking—sometimes at a pub and at Highgrove—and tried smoking marijuana during the summer of 2001. In January 2002, reports of the prince’s illegal activities made tabloid headlines. Prince Harry admitted his misdeeds to his father, who made the young royal visit a South London rehabilitation center to see firsthand the dangers associated with drug use.

In 2003, Prince Harry graduated from Eton. He spent some time traveling through Australia, Argentina and Africa after finishing school. An avid polo player, Prince Harry participated in the Young England versus Young Australia Polo Match Test in Australia. He became involved in charity work while visiting Lesotho in southern Africa, working at a home for orphans of AIDS victims. To promote awareness of the problems there, he created a documentary called The Forgotten Kingdom: Prince Harry in Lesotho. The film helped raise approximately $2 million for the British Red Cross Lesotho Fund.

Around this time, Prince Harry became romantically linked with Chelsy Davy, according to news reports. The two dated on and off for years. Prince Harry again found himself immersed in controversy in January 2005 after photographs of him wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party were published in several newspapers. It was shocking to many that the prince could casually appear the uniform with a swastika armband — a symbol of hate and the atrocities of the Holocaust. In response to the criticism, Prince Harry issued a statement, saying, “I am very sorry if I caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize.”

Military Career

A few months later, Prince Harry and his brother attended their father’s wedding to Bowles. “She’s always been very close to me and William. … She’s not the wicked stepmother. She’s a wonderful woman and she’s made our father very, very happy, which is the most important thing,” Prince Harry told the press at the time.

In May 2005, Prince Harry enrolled at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. After undergoing 44 weeks of training, in April 2006 he joined the Household Cavalry as a second lieutenant. Later that year, Prince Harry and Prince William announced their plans for a special concert to be held in 2007 to mark the 10th anniversary of their mother’s passing.

On what would have been Princess Diana’s 46th birthday, more than 60,000 people gathered at Wembley Stadium for the Concert for Diana. The event raised money for the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and other charities such as Sentebale, which Prince Harry established to help children and others affected by the AIDS crisis in Lesotho.

That same year, Prince Harry began training for possible war zone deployment. His status as a royal posed certain security challenges to the army, and there was much debate regarding whether he should be allowed to serve in a combat situation. In February 2008, Prince Harry began his tour of duty in Afghanistan. He served for two months.

In early 2009, Prince Harry once again faced criticism for his insensitivity. Videos of him from 2006 surfaced, depicting him using a derogatory term for a fellow Pakistani soldier as well as another offensive remark. Prince Harry apologized for his comments, and the army ordered him to undergo sensitivity training.

From 2009 to 2012, Prince Harry trained to become an Apache helicopter pilot in the Army Air Corps. He then put these newfound skills to work in his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, which began in September 2012. After participating in several combat missions, the prince in 2015 ended his official military duties, though he continued volunteering to assist wounded servicemen.

Vegas Photo Scandal

In August 2012, Prince Harry was back in the tabloids after nude photos of the royal had been leaked to the public. The images of the prince were taken during a private party in a hotel room in Las Vegas, where he and his friends reportedly were playing a game of strip billiards.

The photos of the partying prince ran in Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun, but most other papers in England declined to run them. While the story dominated the headlines for a short time, the scandal seemed to have no lasting impact on his public image. One of his first public appearances after the scandal was at the WellChild Awards in London, where he received a warm welcome. Prince Harry serves a patron to WellChild, a charity dedicated to supporting sick children and their families. He even joked in his speech that he was “never shy in coming forward,” according to BBC News.

Meghan Markle

Prince Harry began dating actress Markle, star of the television show Suits, in 2016. They met while Harry was attending the Invictus Games in Toronto, where Suits is filmed. In November of that year, Kensington Palace issued a statement confirming their relationship. The statement also requested privacy and respect for the couple after Markle had been subjected to racist and sexist attacks on social media, as well as harassment by paparazzi.

On November 27, 2017, it was revealed that Prince Harry and Markle had secretly gotten engaged earlier in the month. An official announcement said the two would marry the following spring and move to Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace in London. Later, it was revealed that the couple would marry on May 19, 2018, in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

News of the engagement was greeted with enthusiasm by other members of the royal family. Prince Charles and the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh all declared they were “delighted” at the announcement, while Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, said they were “very excited for Harry and Meghan,” adding, “It has been wonderful getting to know Meghan and to see how happy she and Harry are together.”

In March 2018, the Daily Mail reported that Prince Harry would not sign a prenuptial agreement. According to a source, “There was never any question in Harry’s mind that he would sign a prenup. He’s determined that his marriage will be a lasting one, so there’s no need for him to sign anything.” Additionally, prenups were not considered to be legally binding in the United Kingdom, though judges were known to take them into consideration during divorce trials.

Opening Up About His Mother’s Death

In April 2017, Prince Harry spoke candidly with British journalist Bryony Gordon in a podcast released by the Daily Telegraph about his struggles to come to terms with his mother’s death in his late 20s. “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well,” he said in the interview.

“My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?” he said, explaining his thoughts at the time. “‘It’s only going to make you sad, it’s not going to bring her back.’ So from an emotional side, I was like, ‘Right, don’t ever let your emotions be part of anything.’”

He added that he felt like he had been “very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions,” and finally sought professional counseling at the urging of Prince William, who told him: “‘Look, you really need to deal with this. It is not normal to think that nothing has affected you.’”

Prince Harry also turned to boxing to help him deal with his grief. “That really saved me because I was on the verge of punching someone, so being able to punch someone who had pads was certainly easier,” he said.

He shared his personal story in hopes that it would encourage others to “break the stigma surrounding mental health issues,” according to the Daily Telegraph article. Prince Harry, Prince William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, also launched Heads Together, a campaign to end the stigma around mental health.

Royal Wedding and Children

In April, Kensington Palace issued a statement that said no formal invitations would be issued to political leaders for the big day, thereby breaking with a longstanding tradition at British royal weddings. A New York Times source at the Palace said that 600 friends and family members would be invited, based on capacity at St. George’s Chapel, and that another 1,200 members of the public would join Prince Harry and his bride at Windsor Castle to celebrate.

Shortly afterward, it was revealed that Prince William would be Prince Harry’s best man at the wedding. Harry had filled that role at his big brother’s wedding in 2011.

With his marriage at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018, the Queen officially conferred her grandson with the title Duke of Sussex, as well as the additional titles Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel.

That October, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they were expecting their first child the following spring. On May 6, 2019, their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, arrived at 5:26 a.m. He is sixth in line to the British throne.

“It’s been the most amazing experience I could ever possibly imagine,” he said. “How any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension. But we’re both absolutely thrilled and so grateful to all the love and support from everybody out there. It’s been amazing, so we just wanted to share this with everybody.”

On Valentine’s Day 2021, Prince Harry and Markle announced they’re expecting their second child, a daughter. Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor was born on June 4, 2021, at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California. She is seventh in line to the British throne.

Trip to Africa and Documentary

In late September 2019, Harry, Markle and baby Archie undertook an eventful 10-day trip to Africa. At one point, Harry retraced his mother’s steps through a minefield in Angola, which took place just months before her death. On the final day of the tour, the royal couple announced they were suing the Mail on Sunday for publishing a private letter Markle wrote to her father.

With a film crew in tow to produce the documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, the prince revealed to his interviewer that he thought of his mother whenever facing the flashing cameras of the press. He also acknowledged the whispers that he and William weren’t as close as they’d once been, but downplayed the notion of a major rift between them: “We’re certainly on different paths at the moment but I will always be there for him and as I know he’ll always be there for me. … We don’t see each other as much as we used to because we’re so busy but I love him dearly.”

Stepping Back From Royal Duties

On January 8, 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex dropped the bombshell news that they planned to “step back” from their senior roles in the royal family and work to become “financially independent.”

“It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment. We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honor our duty to The Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages,” they wrote in a joint statement on Instagram. “This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity.”

A few days later, Buckingham Palace released a statement that addressed several details of the new arrangement, including confirmation that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would no longer receive public funds for royal duties or use the honorific His/Her Royal Highness styling. They would be permitted to continue their work with private patronages and to use Frogmore Cottage as their U.K. home, although they would have to reimburse the Sovereign Grant for recent renovations.

After partaking in one final engagement in early March, at the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey, Harry and Markle completed their move to Los Angeles ahead of their March 31 send-off as senior royals.

In February 2021, Markle and Harry confirmed that they would not be returning to their royal roles. They will retain their titles, but no longer use them. “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have confirmed to Her Majesty The Queen that they will not be returning as working members of The Royal Family,” a statement from Buckingham Palace said. “Following conversations with The Duke, The Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of The Royal Family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service.”

Oprah Interview

In March 2021, Markle and Harry sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a two-hour tell-all special. In the interview, Harry addressed why the couple stepped down as working members of the royal family, growing up royal, the status of his relationship with his grandmother, father and brother, “history repeating itself,” and how he thinks his mother would react to everything. “I think she would feel very angry with how this has panned out, and very sad,” he said.

---

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Harry
• Birth Year: 1984
• Birth date: September 15, 1984
• Birth City: London, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Prince Harry is the second son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Princess Diana. He is known for his military service and charitable work.
• Industries
• Documentary
• Sports
• War and Militaries
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• Schools
• Ludgrove School
• Elton College

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us!