Prince Harry reportedly hated “woke nonsense” before meeting Meghan Markle, a new book has claimed. The Mail has more.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, is said to have not been a fan of “all that politically correct stuff” before he first met then-Suits actress Meghan, 41, and enjoyed sharing jokes that “we are no longer allowed to make”.
The claims from one of Prince Harry’s “Eton contemporaries” are made in a new biography, Gilded Youth by Tom Quinn, Newsweek reports.
Quinn’s book reportedly quotes the classmate of Harry’s, who is not named, as saying: “He was funny, a bit cynical and great company because like the rest of us he made jokes that we are no longer allowed to make.”
The claims come after the Duke of Sussex has been accused of being “woke” as he has championed new causes in recent years.
The former Eton pupil is reported to have accused Harry of turning into a “Guardian-reading tree hugger” after meeting the Duchess of Sussex, and suggests the Duchess herself was the person behind his transformation.
He said: “He rarely, if ever, spoke about global warming. He was a sort of Tim-Nice-but-Dim character who liked getting pissed with his army and Eton friends, did a bit of shooting and fishing and was otherwise undistinguished.”
Since stepping down as a senior member of the royal family Harry has spoken out about several causes and issues on which he previously rarely commented.
His more recent forays into tackling these issues have led to some people branding the Duke as ‘woke’.
Last year, royal expert Angela Levin claimed Harry and Meghan were “trying to create an alternative woke royal family”.
She told Femail: “I’ve thought for a long time that Harry and Meghan are trying to create an alternative woke royal family, the grandeur and the pomp and circumstance that surrounds them.”
In his £100 million Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, the Duke discussed how he has tackled his own unconscious bias in recent years and has since encouraged the royal family to do the same.
In an interview to promote his bombshell memoir Spare in January, Harry told former NFL player Michael Strahan the royal family needed to educate themselves on unconscious bias if the monarchy was to modernise and survive.
Harry said he wanted the royals to survive but that understanding race better would be “hugely beneficial” for them.
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