Prince Harry's old friend Charlotte Griffiths compared him to his uncle, the former Prince Andrew, while recalling a weekend of partying in the late noughties on the Daily Expresso podcast.
Griffiths, a former diary journalist, spoke about how she became friends with the royal through London's wild social scene in the late noughties. She spoke positively of Harry and the fun she had mixing with him, Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice and their mutual friends, but made an awkward comparison between Harry and Andrew.
Boisterous weekend described
Reminiscing about a particular weekend, Griffiths described Harry as being "quite boisterous", a word that has frequently been used to describe Andrew. She added: "I've never really met Prince Andrew, but like sort of a toned-down version of Prince Andrew. Lots of jokes were quite crude. He was a bit boorish. He had to be shushed a couple of times by his mates. We lost a shoe at one point. It was complete carnage."
The group of partygoers were all in their twenties and spent the weekend "in a massive posh stately home".
Harry's comments on Andrew
Harry has previously spoken out about the allegations surrounding his uncle. As reported by Newsweek, he wrote in his memoir Spare: "Also, not in the wake of my Uncle Andrew. He was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of the sexual assault of a young woman, and no one had so much as suggested that he lose his security. Whatever grievances people had against us, sex crimes weren't on the list."
Andrew had been accused of sexually abusing Virginia Giuffre when she was 17 years old. Giuffre alleged that the royal abused her on three separate occasions in 2001. Andrew, 66, was arrested on his birthday in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office, relating to his time serving as a UK trade envoy between 2001 and 2011.
The arrest followed the release of millions of pages of documents by the US Department of Justice concerning the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew has repeatedly denied allegations against him.
