How Prince Harry's Nazi costume scandal in 'The Crown' differs from 'Spare'

Luther Ford as Prince Harry in the final season of "The Crown."

Dec. 15, 2023 4:15 PM PT

After six seasons and 60 episodes chronicling the history of postwar Britain through the eyes of Queen Elizabeth II, the series finale of “The Crown” has arrived on Netflix.

The widely anticipated episode, written by series creator Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Daldry, dramatizes one of the more scandalous crises to befall the royal family — a momentous turning point for the institution and, indeed, the nation.

That’s right, in its swan song, “The Crown” gives us the spectacle of Prince Harry in a Nazi costume. The show’s portrayal of the Duke of Sussex, who comes off as a petulant child, and this embarrassing incident — which Harry has sought to reframe as a youthful misstep that helped him understand his unconscious bias — may leave viewers wondering just what Morgan has against Meghan Markle’s husband.

Titled “Sleep, Dearie, Sleep,” the episode — which also finds Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) contemplating her mortality and whether to step down from the throne to allow her son, Prince Charles (Dominic West), to ascend — offers a version of the incident which differs in key ways from the recollections Harry has presented in the hit Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan” and in his bestselling memoir, “Spare.”

Though it ends in 2005, the series hints at growing differences between Prince William (Ed McVey) and Prince Harry (Luther Ford), foreshadowing the brothers’ present-day state of very public enmity. And in the war between the two princes, “The Crown” is firmly #TeamWilliam.

“The Crown’s” William is a dutiful and stoic heir, uncomfortable with the spotlight and displays of emotion — much like his grandmother. Harry, on the other hand, is portrayed as an immature, hard-partying cretin who seethes with resentment toward his brother, father, soon-to-be-stepmother, Camilla (Olivia Williams), and, most of all, his ginger hair. At times, Harry’s depiction flies in the face of “The Crown’s” reputation for meticulous accuracy: Ford, the novice actor portraying Harry beginning at the age of 13, is 23 years old. He also sports a series of wildly unfortunate haircuts — starting with a blunt cut reminiscent of Jim Carrey in “Dumb and Dumber” and moving onto another unfortunate style that doesn’t match Harry’s actual look circa 2005.

The finale should finally lay to rest speculation that Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, who have a lucrative production deal with Netflix, were able to wield influence over the Emmy-winning series. Put another way: Morgan probably won’t be getting an invitation to their Montecito estate anytime soon. (It’s worth nothing that Carole Middleton, the mother of Catherine, Princess of Wales, gets an even harsher rendering as a meddling social-climber whose own daughter likens her to Mrs. Bennet from “Price and Prejudice.”)

For those who have somehow forgotten this milestone event, in 2005, Prince Harry — who had recently completed a gap year in Australia and Lesotho and was about to enroll at Sandhurst, the royal military academy — wore a Nazi uniform to a “fancy dress” party, as the British refer to costume parties, at a friend’s country estate.

Someone at the party secretly snapped a photo of the young royal as he smoked a cigarette and wore a disheveled khaki uniform with a swastika armband, and sold the image to the tabloids. It made front-page news across the world (along with headlines like “Heil Harry”) and ignited a firestorm in the U.K. Condemned by politicians and newspaper columnists alike, Harry — who until then had been widely viewed as a lovable mischief-maker — was eventually forced to issue a public apology.

Copies of the New York Post newspaper lie on display at a newstand featuring a "Royal Nazi"

In “Harry & Meghan,” the first project released as part of Netflix’s deal with Archewell, the Sussexes’ production company, he briefly revisited the Nazi debacle, framing it as a learning experience that helped him face his “unconscious bias” and marked a major step in his evolution from privileged aristocrat to compassionate spouse and advocate for racial justice.

“It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I felt so ashamed afterwards. All I wanted to do was make it right,” Harry says in the series, recalling how he went to Berlin and met with a Holocaust survivor. “I could have just ignored it and gone on and made the same mistakes over and over again in my life. But I learned from that.”

Harry goes into greater detail about the incident in “Spare,” laying much of the blame for the wildly insensitive costume choice on William and his then-girlfriend, Kate Middleton. He claims that he detested theme parties — especially “cringy” ones like “colonials and natives” — and that it was William who loved them; he had even thrown an “Out of Africa” birthday party a year or so earlier. “I found it irritating and baffling,” writes Harry. At William’s insistence, Harry agreed to attend the “colonials and natives” party, and Kate offered to help find a costume.

Harry eventually headed to a well-known costume shop in the village of Nailsworth, near Highgrove, his father’s estate, a place memorable mostly for its “musty, moldy funk.” Having narrowed down his options to two outfits — the Nazi look and a British pilot’s uniform — Harry called Kate and William for their input. They agreed he should go with the Nazi costume.

In “Sleep, Dearie, Sleep,” Harry and William discuss the upcoming celebration while hanging with friends on the roof at Highgrove. (Throughout the scene, Harry shoots an air rifle at beer cans lined up on a stone wall and delights in almost hitting one of their friends, who is clearly inebriated.) It is William, not Harry, who claims to loathe theme parties and specifically objects to the “colonials and natives” concept. He even mentions the rancid smell of rental costumes.

“I hate fancy dress. You have to rent a costume which invariably stinks of other people’s BO,” he says, wondering, “Do you think they could have picked a more offensive theme?”

Harry dismisses his brother’s concerns, believing he’s gone too soft as a college student: “You’re such an undergraduate now. You’d never have said that before uni.”

William and Kate (Meg Bellamy) accompany Harry to the costume shop. The only person to express misgivings about the Nazi ensemble is Kate, who suggests Harry should at least cover the swastika. Meanwhile, William selects a regal lion costume — one that looks nothing like the silly “feline outfit” Harry recalls in “Spare,” which consisted of a skintight leotard and a springy tail that made William look like “a cross between Tigger and Baryshnikov.” (In 2005, the Guardian reported that William wore “a leopard outfit with black leggings,” seeming to corroborate Harry’s version of events.)

At the debaucherous party, complete with Roman soldiers on horseback and a queen performing Queen (get it?), no one outwardly objects to Harry’s Nazi costume. Such a blasé response seems realistic: According to the same Guardian story from 2005, fancy dress parties with imperialist themes were popular with the British upper crust at the time, and Nazi costumes were commonplace. (“People dress up as Nazis all the time for various reasons,” one costume shop owner told the newspaper.)

The incident blows over and, after an intervention by Prince Philip (Jonathan Pryce), who thinks his grandson lacks purpose due to negligent parenting (not unlike his own experience), Harry is able to keep his spot at Sandhurst. But a few months later, at his father’s wedding to Camilla (Olivia Williams), Harry remains as angry, bitter and aimless as ever, shooting daggers at the couple on the altar.

If “The Crown” did Harry dirty, then he should be glad the series is finally over — and that he’ll never have to watch a dramatization of the time he showed up at his brother’s wedding with a frostbitten todger. Be grateful for small mercies, Haz.

‘The Crown’ dramatizes Prince Harry’s Nazi costume scandal, differing from his narrative

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