Prince Harry's life in pictures: The royal 'spare' who quit the monarchy
"Wonderful! Now you've given me an heir and a spare – my work is done," Prince Charles allegedly told Princess Diana when their second son, Prince Harry, was born.
If only Charles knew then how that comment would come back to haunt him decades later in the form of Harry's tell-all memoir, Spare.
He released the book years after quitting the monarchy and giving up his role as a senior royal, and in it made several bombshell claims about his father and the monarchy.
Keep reading to see how Harry went from a "cheeky" royal child, to a struggling young man, before finally leaving the royal family behind and penning his own life story.
Born on September 15, 1984, Henry Charles Albert David is the second son of then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
The world met the ginger royal baby for the first time on the steps of St Mary's Hospital's Lindo Wing, where Diana cradled him just hours after giving birth.
Born just over two years after his elder brother, Prince William, Harry was third in line to the British throne when he took his first breath.
Known as Harry by his family and nicknamed 'Harold' by his big brother, the prince grew up in the lap of royal luxury.
He spent his childhood at Kensington Palace in London, and Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, and was considered the "cheeky" brother, something he inherited from his mum.
"I always remember [Diana's] laugh, her cheeky laugh. Her always saying to me, 'You can get in trouble, just don't get caught.' I'll always be that cheeky person inside," Harry said in 2022.
Beloved by the British public from an early age, there was less pressure on Harry to live up to strict royal expectations compared to his brother William, who would one day be king.
Diana doted on her sons and went out of her way to ensure they got to experience a range of 'normal' activities, like trips to McDonald's and local theme parks.
She didn't want them to grow up isolated from the real world, the way many royal children did at the time.
"She was our guardian, friend and protector. She never once allowed her unfaltering love for us to go unspoken or undemonstrated. Behind the media glare, to us, two children, she was quite simply the best mother in the world," Harry said in 2007.
Harry also looked up to his older brother, especially when they attended school together at London's Jane Mynors' nursery school and the pre-preparatory Wetherby School.
He followed in William's footsteps in many ways, attending the same schools as him – including Ludgrove School in Berkshire as a boy, then Eton College – and following his lead at public royal events.
Even so, it was clear from a young age that the press, public and the monarchy itself had different expectations of the two boys.
One would be king one day; the other would not.
Tragedy visited Harry for the first time when his mother was killed in a horror car crash in 1997, when he was still just a boy.
"I just refused to accept she was gone," he told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. "Part of, she would never do this to us, but also, part of, maybe this is all part of a plan."
Just 12 when Diana died, Harry struggled to cope with the sudden loss, especially as it came just a year after his parents divorced, and he had to deal with it all in the public spotlight.
"William and I can separate life into two parts. There are the years that we were blessed beside us with the physical presence of both our mother and father. And then there are the years since our mother's death," Harry said 10 years later.
He made one of his biggest royal appearances to date after his mum's death, walking in her funeral procession despite not wanting to attend the massive public event at first.
Charles supposedly told a sobbing Harry, "You don't cry, you walk", while convincing the boys to appear at their mother's public funeral.
In the end, their grandfather Prince Philip reportedly persuaded them to appear by promising to walk beside them.
"If I walk, will you walk with me?" he asked them, according to journalist Tina Brown.
They agreed, and as they walked to Westminster Abbey, Philip quietly spoke to them about each of the historic London landmarks they passed to "keep [them] from breaking down."
Left to be raised by his father, Harry had a complicated relationship with Charles from a young age.
"There has always been this complicated relationship with their dad," a palace source told Peopleof William and Harry in 2021.
"It's not a straightforward father-son relationship. He is their father and their boss, and they are beholden to him to fund their offices and lives."
Harry also continued to struggle with the trauma of his mother's death in silence for many years.
As a young man, Harry relied on drugs and alcohol to cope and became known as a "party prince", though the public had no idea how much he was struggling.
"It was obvious to us as kids the British press' part in our mother's misery and I had a lot of anger inside of me that luckily, I never expressed to anybody," he told Cooper years later.
"But I resorted to drinking heavily. Because I wanted to numb the feeling, or I wanted to distract myself from how … whatever I was thinking. And I would, you know, resort to drugs as well."
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