August 2012. Prince Harry flies to Las Vegas, where he plans to clear his head and party before his big departure for the front lines in Afghanistan.
The prince and his band of friends take up residence in a luxury hotel suite: “Two floors, connected by a majestic staircase of white marble, from which we expected to see Elvis and Wayne Newton descend arm in arm below.
No need to take the stairs, though, as the suite also had an elevator.
And a pool table.
In the "city of sin", the program boils down to
pool parties
, Bloody Marys, barbecues and casinos of course.
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So in a relationship with the Englishwoman Cressida Bonas (“I had a girlfriend and I intended to keep her”), Harry wants to immortalize his escapade with a tattoo.
A friend dissuades him and he ends up being dragged into a nightclub, drunk.
“Cuddled up in the corner of a leather bench, I watched the young women who came to flirt with us, vaguely discussed with one or two, whom I encouraged to be more interested in my friends, assures you. he in his
Spare
Memoirs
(
Le Suppléant
, in French).
But I spent most of my time staring into space, thinking back to that tattoo dream I had been forced to give up."
Around 2 a.m., the group of friends return to their suite.
“My buddies invited four or five hotel employees to join us, along with two other women they had met at the blackjack tables.”
Someone suggests a pool table, a plan that tempts Elizabeth II's grandson.
"I picked up the marbles and got into games of 8-Pool with my bodyguards."
Moments later, Harry notices the two blackjack girls hanging around the table.
"They didn't look neat," he recalls.
But when they asked if they could play, I didn't mean to be rude."
"How did I let this thing happen?"
When suddenly, the evening switches to strip billiards, on Harry's proposal.
“Ten minutes later, I was dead last and in my underpants.
Then the underpants also must have fallen off.
A tad ridiculous but inconsequential, I thought.
The next day is the cold shower.
The tabloids learned of the party in Las Vegas, and
The Sun
published the undressed photos of the mischievous prince of the British royal family.
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“As I walked out of the hotel, I turned my head and saw one of my buddies staring at his phone in the blinding desert sun, his mouth hanging open.
He said to me, 'Spike, one of the blackjack girls, took some pictures on the sly and she sold them. Spike… you're everywhere, man,'” Harry relates in his unfiltered autobiography.
“Specifically, my ass was everywhere.
I was naked in front of the whole world (...) I was so angry with myself: how had I let this thing happen?
How could I have been so stupid?
Why did you trust?
I had counted on the good intentions of strangers, counted on the decency of these dirty girls and now I was going to have to pay the price forever.
These images would remain.
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"Prince Crétin strikes again"
Ashamed, Harry immediately fears the repercussions caused by this new scandal, he who sparked controversy a few years earlier by wearing a Nazi uniform during a fancy dress party.
Guilty, he also hopes that his bodyguards will not be fired and fears the reaction of his family, the army and his girlfriend.
“Meanwhile, in Britain, the newspapers had already started to kill me.
"The Return of Harry the Aristo".
"Prince Moron strikes again."
I thought of Cress reading the articles.
To my superiors in the army.
Who was going to weigh me down first?
Harry eventually leaves Las Vegas and travels to Birkhall, Scotland, where his father is.
Also in his Memoirs, he says: “To my surprise and my great relief, he was nice.
Confused, even.
He pitied me, he told me;
although he never ended up naked in a newspaper, he knew what it was.
Besides, it wasn't so true.
When I was about 8 years old, a German newspaper had published nude photos of him, taken with a telephoto lens while he was on vacation in France.
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Like Charles, his superiors in the army are understanding.
Just like his fellow soldiers.
In solidarity with Prince Harry, many soldiers then pose naked – or almost –, covering their private parts with helmets, weapons, berets, before posting the photos online.
Cressida Bonas accepts the prince's apologies.
“After hearing my cautious and sheepish explanation, she concluded the same.
It was stupidity, not debauchery, ”recalls the husband of Meghan Markle, now exiled with his family in California.
"I apologized for the embarrassment I caused him."
As for the bodyguards, they will keep their position, "the best news of all", considers a posteriori prince Harry.
Years have passed since that night in 2012, but it looks like this scandal is sticking to his skin - from behind.
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