Prince Harry sparked alarm as a child when he slipped away from his royal protection officer who later found the young Duke of Sussex alone outside a London record shop. By: ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA
Prince Harry has often painted his childhood as heavily restricted and devoid of the freedom other kids enjoyed.
But a resurfaced story suggests there may have been a good reason the palace tried to keep him on a tight leash when he was a boy.
An anecdote recounted by royal expert Charles Ray on a new episode of The Sun‘s “Royal Exclusive” podcast reveals young Harry once left a royal protection officer “aghast” after the future Duke of Sussex slipped away from Kensington Palace.
The incident followed a cheeky exchange between the young prince and his bodyguard that spiraled into a brief but terrifying disappearance as the royal sought some excitement.
Panic sets in
Princess Diana’s former royal bodyguard Ken Wharfe (left) told GB News in 2022 that as a boy, Prince Harry “was an incredible character.” By: Grieve/Large/Mirrorpix/Newscom/The Mega Agency
According to Ray, Harry would sometimes approach protection officer Ken Wharfe — who worked as the late Princess Diana‘s bodyguard in the late ’80s and early ’90s — “and he’d say, ‘Oh can I be a policeman today?’ And he’d actually give him a radio and so they would talk to each other when they were at Kensington Palace,” Ray recalled, as reported by Britain’s Daily Mirror.
But one day, things took an unexpected turn when Wharfe realized Harry was no longer where he was supposed to be.
“Ken sort of decided, ‘Actually, I better check in where he is.’ And [Harry] was actually across the road, he was slightly older than 5 or 7, and he had actually gone out of the gates and across the road to a record shop,” Ray shared. “Ken was aghast at this and had to go and get him.”
Wharfe himself has also detailed the alarming moment, telling GB News he thought he’d get fired over what happened after Harry developed a “sense of boredom” and decided he wanted to be “entertained.”
Prince Harry’s brother, Prince William, “was always jealous of his personality because Harry was always the fun maker, the entertainer,” Princess Diana’s former royal bodyguard Ken Wharfe told GB News in 2022. By: ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA
Wharfe recalled giving Harry a task — for example, go to the palace garage to speak to a chauffeur — after which he would get another job to do. “So we did that four or five times — gone to the chef, gone to the flower seller whatever,” Wharfe explained.
“In the end [Harry] said, ‘Can I go down and see Aunt Jane?’”
Diana’s sister Lady Jane Fellowes lived just outside Kensington Palace. Wharfe agreed that Harry could go see her so long as he phoned on his way back to the palace.
“About 20 minutes later, I rang Jane and said, ‘Have you sent Harry back yet?’ She said, ‘I sent him back 10 minutes ago,’” Wharfe said.
“It was the quickest run back I had ever done,” Wharfe added, explaining he thankfully found the prince before long.
“There he was, this small kid stood outside Tower Records with my radio.”
Harry’s claim
The story has resurfaced as critics revisit Harry’s accounts of his upbringing, including comments he made during his 2021 CBS interview with Oprah Winfrey a year after he and wife Meghan Markle left their roles as senior working royals and moved to the Duchess of Sussex’s native California.
In the televised sit-down, Harry implied his childhood was so constrained by media scrutiny that he missed out on everyday experiences.
“The highlight for me 1775852775 is sticking [my son, Prince Archie] on the back of a bicycle in his little baby seat and taking him on bike rides, which is something I was never able to do when I was young,” Harry said. “I can seat him on the back, and he’s got his arms out, and he’s like, ‘Whoa.’”
But Ray pushed back on that narrative on the “Royal Exclusive” podcast, using the Kensington Palace incident as an example. “So this, I’m reined in, I’m a poor child, you know, he hasn’t got a clue what it was like, he really hasn’t,” Ray said.