'He wanted me to hit him back': Harry says he saw 'red mist' in William during physical attack
6 January 2023, 08:09 | Updated: 6 January 2023, 08:19
Prince Harry says he saw a "red mist" come over his brother William during a physical fight between the two, claiming his brother "wanted me to hit him back".
Harry said he "chose not" to retaliate to William's attack, claiming the alleged incident took place in 2019 in Nottingham Cottage, when Harry and Meghan had moved in there.
William had come to the house to complain about Meghan Markle, Harry claimed, before calling her "difficult", "rude" and "abrasive".
"What was different here was the level of frustration, and I talk about the red mist that I had for so many years, and I saw this red mist in him," Harry told ITV in a new trailer for his interview with Tom Bradby.
"He wanted me to hit him back, but I chose not to."
"It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog's bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me," he reportedly wrote in the new book.
William said he was trying to help his brother before Harry shot back: "Are you serious? Help me? Sorry - is that what you call this? Helping me?"
This comment allegedly made William angry, and Harry said that the attack happened after he had offered his brother a glass of water, telling him: "Willy, I can’t speak to you when you’re like this."
William then supposedly called his brother "another name" before attacking him.
Read More: Prince Harry admits taking cocaine as a teenager 'to feel different'
The royal family has so-far kept tight-lipped after a series of devastating allegations emerged from Prince Harry's book Spare.
The autobiography – which has not yet been released in the UK but came out prematurely in Spain – sees the Duke of Sussex admit that he took cocaine.
In another extract, Harry said his father made a joke about his parentage amid a backdrop of rumours that he was actually the love child of Diana and Major James Hewitt, who had an affair between 1986 and 1991.
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The duke said one of Charles's favourite anecdotes was to tell about a time he visited an psychiatric hospital and met a patient claiming to be the Prince of Wales.
Finishing the story with Harry present, he said: "Who knows if I'm even your real father? Perhaps your father really is in Broadmoor, my dear son!"
Harry said he found that in poor taste given the conspiracies about his parentage at the time.
The duke also recalls an incident where Meghan told Kate she must have "baby brain because of the hormones". Meghan was then told she wasn't close enough to Kate to talk about that.
Meghan looked confused as to why Kate had taken offence, with William then pointing at Meghan to say the comment was "rude" and not how they did things, with Meghan then telling William to "take your finger out of my face", Harry claims.
Elsewhere in the book, Harry admits to taking cocaine as a teenager "to feel different", an apparent rebellion against what he called a "pre-established order", and that he lost his virginity in a field to an older woman.
He described asking his chauffeur to drive him to the Parisian tunnel where Diana died, asking him to go at the same speed as the car she was in, and said he fully realised she was dead after that.
The duke describes killing 25 Taliban in Afghanistan, says he asked his father not to marry Camilla along with William, and that Charles did not want Meghan at Balmoral.
Spare is due out on January 10 but it has already been released in Spain by accident.In a separate upcoming ITV interview – extracts of which have already been released – Harry expresses a wish to get this father and brother back.
But it remains to be seen what kind of fallout his memoir will cause.It will likely make any reconciliation even more unlikely after a controversial Netflix documentary, and ahead of King Charles's coronation this year.
