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Prince Harry’s “Spare” came with a whole bunch of startling revelations, but while some of them (like the strained family dynamics and The Firm’s eyebrow-raising relationship with the British press) were somewhat expected, others decidedly were not. We’re referring, of course, to the story the Duke of Sussex told about getting frostbite on his private parts which, let’s face it, isn’t something we needed to hear about. For anyone who hasn’t snagged a copy of “Spare” yet, the gist is this: Shortly before Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2011 royal wedding, Harry ventured to the North Pole on a challenging expedition to raise funds for Walking with the Wounded, a charity benefitting British veterans.
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However, the then-20-something prince got a little more than he bargained for. As Harry recalled in “Spare,” he developed frostnip in his cheeks and ears, aka the beginning stage of frostbite. Turns out his ears and cheeks were just the tip of the iceberg, though. As the royal defector recounted in his memoir, “Upon arriving home I’d been horrified to discover that my nether regions were frostnipped as well.” Not quite the nuclear blast we expected from the prince’s memoir, but a yikes-worthy detail all the same.
During an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” ahead of his book launch, Harry confirmed that he’d sustained the injury because he didn’t have a specially made cushion for the, ahem, affected area. Surely echoing everyone else’s thoughts on the matter, Colbert wasn’t exactly able to keep a straight face upon hearing that particular piece of intel. Instead, he took off his glasses, covered his face and laughed hysterically before quipping, “No one in my life, when I was a child, could ever explain to me that some day the Duke of Sussex was going to say the words ‘c*** cushion’ to me.” TBH, same.
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Prince Harry recovered from his injury and later went to Antarctica
Much as we didn’t need to know about Prince Harry’s brush with frostnip, for anyone who is concerned, he’s fully healed up now. What’s more, the royal defector learned from the experience — which was important, since two years after his North Pole (mis)adventure, Harry headed off in the opposite direction, for another fundraiser in the South Pole. As the Duke of Sussex pointed out in “Spare,” he knew to have better-fitting underwear the second time around. Plus, Harry (over)shared, “One very close mate hired a seamstress to make me a bespoke c*** cushion. Square, supportive, it was sewn from pieces of the softest fleece and … Enough said.”
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Better prep aside, the prince also joked in the bestselling memoir that he’d been baptized by fire (or in this case, ice) the first time around, so Harry wasn’t quite as worried about the South Pole and all the challenges that came with it, like icier temperatures. Recounting what he’d told those who warned him about the elements, the duke wrote, “I’d already frozen my penis, mate — wasn’t that the very definition of the worst-case scenario?” Unfortunately, Harry’s South Pole expedition wasn’t exactly injury-free, as he revealed in “Spare” that he’d experienced altitude sickness while there. Granted, as with the North Pole freeze, he recovered from that.
One thing that sadly didn’t recover was Harry’s friendship with “The Crown” actor Dominic West. After the trip, West admitted that he and the royal defector (whose father, King Charles III, he went on to play), had drunk champagne from one of the participants’ prosthetic legs. Despite Harry detailing the moment himself in “Spare,” West later clarified on “Sunday Morning” that the prince had not been amused by him telling the story, acknowledging, “[I] probably said too much,” (via Us Weekly). Only time will tell if the iciness between them ever thaws.
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