Prince Harry recalls turning to drugs as a teenager to cope with depression and feelings of isolation.
Prince Harry has revealed that he experimented with drugs as a teenager, admitting that he sought an escape from his struggles with depression and social acceptance.
In his memoir Spare, the Duke of Sussex recounted how, at 17 years old, he first tried substances during a weekend at a country house.
Embed from Getty Images“At someone’s country house, during a shooting weekend, I’d been offered a line, and I’d done a few more since,” he wrote. “It wasn’t much fun, and it didn’t make me particularly happy, as it seemed to make everyone around me, but it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal.”
He described being in a deeply unhappy state, willing to experiment with anything that might “alter the status quo.”
Later, in an interview with Dr. Gabor Maté, Harry elaborated on his experience with drugs, stating, “That didn’t do anything for me. It was more of a social thing.”
Harry’s candid revelations come after years of public struggles with mental health, which he has openly discussed in various interviews. His departure from the Royal Family in 2020, alongside Meghan Markle and their son Prince Archie, marked a major turning point in his life.
The couple later accused the Royal Family of racial bias towards their son and detailed their grievances in a series of explosive interviews. Now settled in California, Harry and Meghan have welcomed their daughter, Princess Lilibet, and continue to advocate for mental health awareness.
