Prince Harry's friends forced to stop him from getting tattoo in Vegas
Harry visited Vegas 14 years agoPrince Harry’s friends were once forced to step in to stop him from making a permanent mistake, the royal once revealed.
A trip to Las Vegas almost ended in regret for the Duke of Sussex back in 2012.
Prince Harry in Las Vegas
Back in 2012, during a visit to Las Vegas, Prince Harry almost left with a permanent reminder of his trip there – a tattoo.
Recounting the incident in his 2023 book, Spare, Harry revealed his friends had to physically restrain him from getting some ink on the trip.
Harry explained that the idea came after a day of drinking, which had started at breakfast with Bloody Mary’s.
“I was in rough shape, and filling up with…ideas,” Harry wrote.
“I need something to commemorate this trip, I decided. Something to symbolize my sense of freedom, my sense of carpe diem. For instance…a tattoo? Yes! Just the thing!” he then continued.
After deciding to get an inking of Botswana – the country he calls his second home – inked on his foot, Harry told his friends his idea.
Prince Harry’s tattoo plans
“I went to find Billy the Rock to tell him where we were going,” Harry continued.
“He smiled. No way. My mates backed him up. Absolutely not. In fact, they promised to physically stop me. I was not going to get a tattoo, they said, not on their watch, least of all a foot tattoo of Botswana.”
“They promised to hold me down, knock me out, whatever it took. A tattoo is permanent; it’s forever! Their arguments and threats are one of my last clear memories from that evening. I gave in. The tattoo could wait till the next day,” he then added.
Harry and his pals then went continued their partying at a nightclub before arriving back at their suite with some women they’d met. A game of strip poker then ensued, which made front pages of the papers back at home.
Speaking of the strip poker pictures published, Harry wrote: “These photos would never go away. They were permanent. They’d make a foot tattoo of Botswana look like a splodge of Indian ink.”
Harry’s strip poker pictures
St James’ Palace were left unhappy with Harry’s strip poker pictures being published by the press. They insisted that he had been a victim whose privacy had been invaded.
“We have made our views on Prince Harry’s privacy known. Newspapers regulate themselves, so the publication of the photographs is ultimately a decision for editors to make,” they said.
“We have no further comment to make either on the publication of the photographs or on the story itself concerning Prince Harry’s private holiday in Las Vegas.”
The palace had reportedly contacted the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) to warn British publications about publishing the images.
The Sun eventually published the images, despite the warnings.
Speaking about the pictures in 2013, Harry told the BBC: “At the end of the day I probably let myself down, I let my family down, I let other people down.
“But at the end of the day I was in a private area and there should have been a certain amount of privacy that one should expect.”
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