Scandalous Prince Harry Moments Everyone Forgets About

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, has always had a bit of a reputation for enjoying himself — sometimes to excess. He's also shown several times, especially when he was younger, that he doesn't always make the best choices. While Harry has argued in the past that he feels the oppressive coverage by British tabloids encouraged him to act out and behave irresponsibly, it seems that an appreciation for hard liquor and a desire for attention and adoration also play a role in his high-profile shenanigans.

Harry has, of course, courted controversy and rumors even as a married adult — what with his wife, Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex being American, them leaving the royal family and moving to the U.S., and him writing an explosive tell-all memoir filled with startling revelations. However, these more grown-up scandals don't hold a candle to the headline-grabbing escapades from Harry's youth. There were so many, in fact, that quite a few of them flew under the radar or were forgotten all together. Everyone remembers Harry's wildly offensive Halloween costume or his incredibly brief one-day stint in rehab as a teenager, but what about all the scandalous moments that prove just how much of a royal rule breaker (and actual rule breaker) Harry really was?

When Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex attended Eton College in Berkshire, England, in 2003, the then-18-year-old royal allegedly got a little extra help on one of his art class assignments. A former instructor at Eton, Sarah Forsyth, claimed that she was instructed by Ian Burke, the head of the university's art department, to write up statements for Harry regarding his art, which he would then pass off as his own work. Forsyth made these claims at a tribunal hearing in 2005 after she was fired by Eton following the alleged cheating.

"I assumed I had been asked to do this because Prince Harry was a weak student," Forsyth said at the heading, The Guardian reported at the time. While Eton College cleared Prince Harry with regards to cheating after an internal investigation, the hearing tribunal awarded Forsyth $45,000 for wrongful dismissal. In his 2023 memoir, "Spare," Harry recalled the controversy and claimed that the palace prohibited him from defending himself in the press.

In 2013, Prince Harry participated in a 200-mile trek to the South Pole as part of the Walking With The Wounded charity expedition event, benefiting wounded warriors. The Duke of Sussex was joined on the difficult journey by "The Wire" star Dominic West — who, notably, later went on to portray Harry's father, King Charles III, in Netflix's "The Crown." According to West, after the participants reached the South Pole, Prince Harry was among the many who partied hard to commemorate the momentous accomplishment.

"Two of the Aussie guys stripped naked and ran round the pole but most of us, Harry included, just went on a two-day bender with the Icelandic truck drivers who had brought some lethal home brew with them. There was a lot of liquor drunk," West told reporters after returning home from the expedition (via The Guardian). The actor went on to praise Harry for telling "some eye-wateringly rude jokes which, for a non-soldier like me, was pretty shocking." Additionally, the actor claimed that they all drank champagne from one of the participant's "favorite prosthetic legs."

Prince Harry has had a lot of romances in his life, and each of them have been dissected, analyzed, and splashed all over front covers by British tabloids time and time again. However, one high-profile alleged dalliance involved a 21-year-old Prince Harry getting cozy with an older woman while still in an on-and-off relationship with his then-girlfriend Chelsy Davy. The woman in question was then-34-year-old Catherine Ommanney, a former "Real Housewives of D.C." star, who claims she met Harry at the London Art Bar in May 2006, and they wound up hitting it off after she poked fun at his attire.

"Harry was wearing an Australian-style hat that made me laugh, so I asked him, 'What are you doing looking like a twat in that?' I don't think he was used to people taking the mickey, and once we started talking, it was like there was no one else in the room," she recalled to The Sun in November 2022. She claimed that the two of them went back to a friend's house and flirtatiously began to wrestle, before she said she needed to head home. "It was then that he lifted me by my waist off the floor and held me against the wall. He gave me the most incredible, passionate kiss I have ever had in my life."

When William, Prince of Wales tied the knot with Katherine Middleton in April 2011, royal watchers couldn't help but notice that Prince Harry appeared to be a bit disheveled as he served as his brother's best man at the ceremony. As it turns out, Harry reportedly spent the night before the big day partying with Pippa Middleton and some friends at a hotel bar where the Middleton family was staying for the royal wedding. An unnamed source told the Daily Mail that Prince Harry was drinking with his pals until 3am, despite his important role in the nuptials the following day.

"People were surprised to see him there so late before one of the biggest wedding days of the decade, and even more surprised when he jumped off the balcony — and landed with a thump," the source said. Apparently, Harry had a bit to drink and decided that, instead of taking the handful of steps down to the garden exit, he preferred to climb up over the railings and leap six feet down into a bush. "He flinched for just a moment before he stood up, rubbing his ankle. Then he looked up, smiled and waved to a roar of cheers before disappearing onto the lawn where there was a secret exit ... at one point it was thought he'd twisted his ankle." Luckily for Harry, he slept it off and woke up in enough time to be William's best man.

Prince Harry learned the hard way that when you're a prince, you can't always trust your friends not to sell photos of you to the press when you decided to get fully naked in a Las Vegas hotel room with a group of pals while playing strip billiards. If that sounds like an incredibly specific situation, it's because that's exactly what happened to the rowdy royal in August 2012.

According to TMZ, who first obtained and published the fully nude photos, Harry was partying in Sin City with an entourage and eventually met a group of very attractive young women who were likely enchanted by meeting a real-life prince. However, in a decidedly non-fairy tale twist, they all wound up drinking a bunch and playing pool until their clothes fell off, it would seem. In the photos published by the outlet, Harry appears to be in good spirits and having the time of his life as he and another entirely naked unknown woman bear hug and take turns covering each other's naughty bits. Although it's likely that Harry would have looked less joyful if he knew just how quickly those photos would be hitting the internet.