WADING past portaloos on piggy back, glugging VIP cocktails and wrestling in the mud with Mike Tindall, it was a vision of the notorious ‘Party Prince’ few of us would recognise today.
But having spent a wild summer hanging out backstage with Prince Harry, I’ve seen first-hand another remarkable, hidden side to the royal – one he’d no doubt rather wife Meghan Markle didn’t know.
In those carefree days where he was merrily bombing around music festivals – even secretly getting up onstage in an outrageous disguise – I’ve never seen him happier, and now fear he’ll live to regret refusing to ever come back to the UK.
The Duke of Sussex – now living in the States with Meghan and their children Archie, six and Lilibet, four – recently said losing the legal challenge over his security funding means it’s impossible for him to bring his family back to the UK safely.
It’s a crying shame, as I’ve seen how much he clearly once enjoyed being in the thick of it with ordinary fans and punters back home – a distant memory from the troubled exile who now looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Harry, 40, is so far removed from the carefree lad I hung out with at festivals back in 2011, when he was known as ‘The Party Prince’ and ranked as everyone’s favourite royal.
He was a regular attendee at the Hard Rock Festival in London‘s Hyde Park – one of the most popular summer festivals because they spent millions building a fully-functioning restaurant backstage in the VIP section, so everyone wanted to blag entry.
The first night in June 2011 had The Killers headlining and it was typical English summer weather, absolutely pouring down. But the rain didn’t put good old Harry off having a great time.
He arrived in the backstage area with his cousin Princess Eugenie as well as Gossip Girl star Chace Crawford. The VIP area was really muddy and people were getting filthy just wading their way to the toilets.
The Hard Rock Café bouncer, John Pascale, who was nicknamed Big Johnny, realised this was not fitting for a prince and leapt to offer his help.
He gave Harry a piggy back to and from the posh portaloos. It was quite the sight to see The Queen‘s grandson on the back of this huge bloke laughing and messing around.
John joked with the prince that he would happily carry him to the side of the stage, too, to watch the show if required.
Harry was hysterically laughing at the whole situation and everyone who worked there commented how super nice and down to earth he was.
He sat at a normal table and tucked into the famous Hard Rock burgers and plenty of cocktails.
One of the staff told me that Harry had a special connection with Hard Rock Café, as his mum, Princess Diana, used to bring him and his brother Prince William to the restaurant on Hyde Park Corner when they were younger.
She was also a fan and famously wore a Hard Rock Café jacket when she went down the log fume with them at Chessington World of Adventures.
In a nod to this memory, the staff presented him with a specially made T-shirt that said Hard Rock Harry on it – and he was thrilled.
Royal rumbled
He clearly had a great time as he returned to Hyde Park the following weekend for Wireless Festival. When I arrived, there were murmurs that Prince Harry was planning to attend.
I imagined with a 65,000 strong crowd the chances of seeing him again would be slim – after all surely he would be backstage surrounded by bodyguards?
So I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him larking around in the VIP section with cousin Zara Tindall and her then-fiancé Mike (the pair married three weeks later) in front of the main stage.
I was never going to pass up the opportunity to speak to a royal, so rocked over to Harry, introduced myself and asked for a selfie.
He said: “I’m sorry I can’t take pictures as I’m not here in an official capacity.” I said with a wink, “Well if I stand here and take a picture of myself and you happen to be in the background… so be it.”
I then asked him if he was excited for the show… or did he prefer Glee? He’d spent some time at Hard Rock Calling the previous weekend hanging out with the cast of the teen singing show ahead of their sold out O2 gig.
He chuckled telling me: “Nah, I don’t even like Glee. I’m looking forward to watching the Black Eyed Peas. I’m gonna have a bit of a dance and enjoy the sun.”
Go wild with cousins
After some back and forth about our favourite acts, it became clear to Harry that I’d dragged my mate Ollie along as a plus one, and that he was more interested in the free bar than the Prince’s favourite R&B act.
Perhaps tired of our music analysis, he gave a subtle nod to a man who had been lingering nearby. Suddenly, I felt a tap on the shoulder and he said: “I think you’ve chatted to the Prince enough, can you please move away?”
We did as we were asked and hit the bar, but when the music started and more gig-goers swarmed to the small VIP area in front of the stage, we ended up back beside Harry.
He clearly had been enjoying the beverages as much as us, as by now he and Mike Tindall were in a playful mood.
It was not the most princely behaviour and they kept diving at each other. Finally Harry managed to knock the former rugby player to the ground and the pair kept wrestling, while Zara laughed at their antics and the rest of us watched on in amusement and astonishment.
Later the royal lifted a pal’s little girl on his shoulders so she could see the band.
Hilarious disguise
While Harry didn’t seem bothered about being recognised, he used a slightly different tactic when he attended the 2009 Barclaycard Wireless Festival in London‘s Hyde Park.
He was backstage when Basement Jaxx played their set. They revealed afterwards that they had invited him to guest as a dancing gorilla.
Jaxx star Felix Buxton said: “We were lucky enough to meet Prince Harry. I think he was more interested in Dizzee Rascal.
“Anyway, we met Harry before the show and said, ‘If you want to be a gorilla on stage, help yourself’.”
Harry duly agreed. One of the requirements of being a dancing gorilla was to not overdo it on stage, but apparently Harry got a bit too excited.
“[One gorilla] was doing this kind of silly disco dancing,” Felix said.
Perhaps all Harry needs is a trip home, a good festival and an open bar to remind him what he used to love so much about the UK
“Often we say, can you try and get into the part of being a gorilla? Don’t try act like you’re on a stag do. So I went over and rugby tackled him down.
“And after doing that, I looked out to side-stage and saw [security] with a hand on an earpiece. [I thought], ‘Oh god, I forgot! Maybe that’s him?’ It looked like it was serious on a presidential level.”
He later went to the dressing room to say sorry to the Duke of Sussex: “I quite pathetically did a curtsy to apologise for knocking him over.”
But it was ok as Harry enjoyed the anonymity of monkeying around in front of a large crowd.
Felix added: “He said that was one of the best moments of his life. He might look back now and think, ‘Oh god yeah, I was so free'”.
When I saw the picture Meghan posted on their eldest child Archie’s sixth birthday, looking alone at the sun distantly, it made me sad.
Having spent so little time in the UK, neither of the couple’s children have got to know their cousins, George, Charlotte and Louis.
While that summer, Harry got to go wild with his cousins Zara and Eugenie, it seems unlikely his own offspring will get to have such adventures.
Perhaps all Harry needs is a trip home, a good festival and an open bar to remind him what he used to love so much about the UK.
