Prince Harry lifted the lid on his private life in London on 13 July, when a close friend used a podcast appearance to tease the royal about his 'annoying' habits on nights out and during their time in the British military. The Duke of Sussex, now better known for his devotion to Meghan Markle and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, found himself on the receiving end of some surprisingly blunt banter.
Prince Harry sat down with rugby star Joe Marler for the Joe Marler Will See You Now podcast, ostensibly to talk about children's resilience, trauma and how veterans cope with life after service. Partway through the recording, Invictus Games competitor JJ Chalmers, one of Harry's closest friends from his army days, joined the conversation. What began as a serious discussion about mental health slowly slid into something closer to a barracks-style roast.
Prince Harry And The 'Prying Eyes' Problem On Nights Out
JJ Chalmers first met Prince Harry while recovering from serious injuries suffered in Afghanistan. Their friendship, forged in military hospitals and on Invictus tracks rather than palace drawing rooms, has always had a different flavour to the usual royal acquaintance. That difference was obvious the moment co-host Jake Bhardwaj decided to test it.
'Very quick fire. What's the thing he does that gets most on your tears?' Bhardwaj asked, nudging Chalmers to betray at least one un-princely trait.
Chalmers did not exactly hold back. 'So, he leaves the toilet seat up, and he never puts the lid back,' he replied, deadpan. Marler was briefly lost for words, managing only: 'Good. Great. Good.'
Prince Harry, clearly aware of the trap being set, tried to let his friend off. 'By the way, it doesn't have to be anything,' he offered, as if giving permission to stay diplomatically quiet.
'I can't say nothing,' Chalmers shot back, and the studio fell about laughing. The implication was obvious: Harry might be a duke, but he still lives like every other man whose bathroom etiquette irritates the people around him.
Pressed again, this time on what a night out with Prince Harry really looks like, Chalmers painted a picture far from the wild-club stereotype that has clung to the younger royal since his twenties.
'We've never had big, big sessions. You're always on your best behaviour,' he said, explaining that most of their evenings together happen on the sidelines of an Invictus gala or similar formal event. 'A lot of the time when we're out, it's like an Invictus Gala, or it's like some sort of thing. And we're in the corner, the lads, because you know, you get a bunch of veterans together, and you're sometimes like a parent, really. You have to sort of look out.'
Then came the detail that will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to have a quiet pint with a famous friend. Chalmers admitted that, however much he wants Harry to relax, the Duke invariably drags a spotlight along with him.
He wants his friend to have his 'own fun,' Chalmers said, but Prince Harry arrives with 'extra prying eyes.' With careful emphasis, he added: 'And that, for the record, that's not on you personally. That's the annoying bit.'
Being with Harry, he explained, is 'lovely' because the prince gives everyone his time. The flip side is that the evening can grind to a halt once the room realises a royal is present. It is a version of Harry that royal watchers rarely see: a man whose biggest social crime, according to his mates, is making it hard for others to blend in.
Prince Harry's Army Stories And The Habit That Annoys Meghan
The mood shifted again when Marler decided to lob in a question that would have been unthinkable in any palace press call. 'When was the last time he [expletive] himself?' the host asked Chalmers, referring directly to Prince Harry and not bothering to conceal the word picture.
Harry responded by reaching back to their army days, recalling a time in the field when his own inexperience with jungle conditions caught up with him. The story, lightly sketched rather than fully spelt out, hinted at some messy consequences. He then turned the question on his interrogator, accusing Marler of asking only because he had soiled himself 'on multiple occasions.'
'Yeah, I have,' Marler admitted, visibly flustered and suddenly very much the least royal man in the room. The power dynamic flipped. Harry, mocked moments earlier for his toilet-seat offences, had neatly deflected the most embarrassing anecdote away from himself.
If that revealed a more mischievous side to Prince Harry, another 'annoying' habit he has spoken about publicly appears almost wholesome by comparison.
In the 2018 BBC One documentary Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70 (via People), Harry admitted that he had inherited Prince Charles's obsession with switching off unnecessary lights. Sitting alongside Prince William, he described their father as 'a stickler for turning lights off' and confessed that he had become 'obsessed' with it too.
William chimed in: 'I know, I've got serious OCD on light switches now, which is terrible.'
Harry said Meghan had quickly noticed the trait when they were living at Nottingham Cottage in Kensington Palace. 'Which is insane because – I don't know whether your wife doesn't – my wife certainly goes, 'Well, why turn the lights off? You know, it's dark.' I go, 'We only need one light, we don't need like six.''
He framed it as more than just a personal quirk. For Prince Harry, it was one of the 'key lessons' passed down from his father and something anyone could adopt, a small domestic act with an environmental conscience attached.
Nothing in the podcast has been independently corroborated beyond the broadcast itself, and the stories rely on the recollections of those present, so they should be taken with a grain of salt.
Stripped of the palace press machine and the choreographed speeches, that mix of lavatory humour, minor domestic gripes and inherited eco-guilt is strangely disarming. Harry emerges not as the endlessly polarising figure of royal commentary, but as the friend who ruins your low-key night out simply by turning up and then scolds you for leaving all the lights on when you get home.
