Prince Harry may no longer be a working royal, but up until he quit in 2020, he had spent years carrying out official engagements and duties. This ranged from visiting hospitals, hosting events, meeting communities and doing charity work.
It also saw the prince attend spectacular royal events, with Trooping the Colour one of the biggest. While the prince always looked delighted and animated at such events, it seems that he may not have felt this way on the inside. This is because, according to the Daily Mail journalist Charlotte Griffiths, he sometimes attended royal engagements on very little sleep.
This was revealed by Griffiths in a damning article this week, published after Harry lost his court case against the publishers of The Daily Mail, who he had accused of unlawful information gathering.
They kept in touch via Facebook messenger, and met again on June 9, 2012, when she attended a gathering at her friend’s Chelsea home – a friend who was also close with Harry, who was at the party.
Griffiths said there were about 20 people at the party, dancing, laughing and boozing till after dawn.
She then said that she left the party in the early hours, after messaging Prince Harry, the next day, just after 10am, to see if he was awake.
She said she sent the text because she knew the prince had an early-morning event he had to attend after a night of partying.
Writing in her Daily Mail article, she said: “The party continued until dawn, when I bade farewell to the last men standing and took a taxi home to bed. Just after 10am, when I woke, I sent the prince a text message.
“I must have changed phones dozens of times since then, so the messages are lost now, and I can’t remember what exactly we discussed. But Trooping the Colour was imminent, and Harry had mentioned at the party that he was required to attend a related event early that morning. So I think I was asking whether he’d made it.
“I recall finding it hilarious that he was undertaking formal engagements following an almost entirely sleepless night.”