Prince Harry accuses Prince William of physical assault in book

Prince Har­ry claims he was phys­i­cal­ly assault­ed by his broth­er, Prince William. The Guardian reports that the Duke has seen a copy of his forth­com­ing mem­oir Spare.

Accord­ing to the news­pa­per, the two are argu­ing over Prince Har­ry’s wife, Meghan.

“He grabbed me by the throat, ripped off his neck­lace and threw it on the floor,” quot­ing Har­ry in The Guardian.

Kens­ing­ton Palace said it had “no comment”.

BBC News has yet to see a spare copy. Buck­ing­ham Palace, which rep­re­sents the roy­al fam­i­ly, has not yet respond­ed to a request for comment.

The mem­oir won’t be released until next Tues­day, but The Guardian claims to have obtained a copy of it in what it describes as “tough secu­ri­ty mea­sures pri­or to publication.”

Accord­ing to The Guardian, the con­tro­ver­sy began in 2019 when Prince William made com­ments to Prince Har­ry at his home in London.

Prince Har­ry writes that his broth­er crit­i­cized his mar­riage to Meghan Markle. Prince William described her as “grumpy,” “dis­re­spect­ful” and “close-mind­ed,” it wrote.

The Duke of Sus­sex wrote that his broth­er was “par­rot­ing the press sce­nario” as the con­flict escalated.

Prince Har­ry explains what hap­pened next, includ­ing a phys­i­cal altercation.

“He put down a glass of water, insult­ed me, and rushed at me. It hap­pened very quick­ly. Very fast.

“They grabbed him by the neck, ripped off his col­lar, and threw him to the ground.

He land­ed in a “dog bowl”, snapped under his back, and was slashed. I lay dumb­found­ed for a while, then got up and told him to leave. ”

Mar­tin Pen­gel­ly, a reporter for The Guardian’s U.S. web­site who wrote the arti­cle, said he had not con­tact­ed Prince William’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions team.

The reporter said his arti­cle was “Har­ry’s book report, Har­ry’s record.”

Pen­gel­ly told BBC Radio 5 Live: “We’ve been care­ful not to call it a fight because we’re clear­ly say­ing Har­ry did­n’t fight back.”

The Guardian reports that Prince Har­ry was urged to fight back by his broth­er and refused to do so, but Prince William has since “reflect­ed and apologized”.

Pho­tos show that Prince Har­ry reg­u­lar­ly wore the dark neck­lace, even recent­ly (Sep­tem­ber 2019), at events such as the Invic­tus Games and on tour abroad with Meghan Markle.

Pub­lish­er Pen­guin Ran­dom House has yet to con­firm the authen­tic­i­ty of the leaked book excerpt, but Prince Har­ry recent­ly spoke out about his trou­bled rela­tion­ship with his brother.