Journalist Who Fought Prince Harry in Court Reveals He Put a 'White Pill' in Her Mouth at Dinner Party
From royal rebel to family man, Prince Harry's colorful past returns as editor Charlotte Griffiths shares a bizarre pill tale.
Prince Harry has been candid about his past substance use in both interviews and his memoir, Spare, revealing he occasionally turned to drugs to cope with the emotional turmoil of losing his mother, Princess Diana. While he is now a devoted husband and father, stories from his wilder bachelor days continue to resurface. Most recently, royal editor Charlotte Griffiths claimed that the "party prince" once pressured her into taking a small white pill, which she discreetly spit out and disposed of—thrusting Harry's past back into the spotlight.
Looking back on a December 2011 dinner party she attended with Harry as a young reporter, Griffiths penned a scathing article in the Daily Mail shortly after the Duke's court loss against the publication. Describing his personality at the time, she wrote, "In person, he [Harry] was quite the live wire: boisterous, charming, and overflowing with a (sometimes excessive) degree of self-confidence." She then recalled an incident from that shooting weekend: "Take that white pill he'd [Harry] so brazenly stuck in my mouth (which I discreetly removed and folded into a napkin soon afterwards). It was almost certainly paracetamol, rather than something more sinister. But I couldn't be entirely sure."
Furthermore, the royal editor detailed his use of creatine—a legal fitness supplement typically used to support muscle growth and performance—noting that Harry had to undergo random drug tests while in the army. She continued, "While others might take cocaine at the clubs, bars, and parties he [Harry] went to, he told me he now took something called creatine. When inhaled in powder form, Harry explained, the stuff provides a burst of energy that keeps one dancing till dawn." Griffiths also alleged that the Prince kick-started their "short and surreal friendship" by subjecting her to a "little test," which involved the incident with the white pill.
For context, Griffiths was also one of the journalists who testified on behalf of Associated Newspapers Ltd (the publisher of the Daily Mail) in Prince Harry's lawsuit. During the proceedings, she laid bare the Duke's flirty messages to her from between December 2011 and January 2012, in which he referred to her as "sugar" and signed off with "mwah." In one text, he lamented missing a gathering, writing, "I WISH I were there, sugar, but unfortunately stuck in Cornwall doing Army stuff :( Otherwise I would have been there playing and then drinking you under the table, obvi!!"
