Prince Harry US visa documents released in redacted form over harassment fears
Heavily redacted court documents related to Prince Harry's US visa have been released in the US, with his 'exact status' remaining confidential over fears he could be subjected to harassment.
Judge Carl Nichols ordered the release of the documents after a freedom of information (FoI) request by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US thinktank. The Heritage Foundation argued that the Duke might have concealed past illegal drug use – discussed in his memoir Spare – which should have disqualified him from obtaining a US visa.
Applicants for US visas are asked about current and past drug use and admissions can lead to applications being rejected, but immigration officers have discretion to make a final decision based on a number of factors.
The prince's visa form has not been released, with the redacted documents released on Tuesday as it was argued that there was not a strong enough public interest argument to disclose the Duke's immigration records in full.
The documents read: 'To release his exact status could subject him to reasonably foreseeable harm in the form of harassment as well as unwanted contact by the media and others.'
It continued: 'There is the potential of harm in the form of harassment if his exact [REDACTED] is revealed. Thus, there is significant privacy interests involved in the records.
'Plaintiffs have not established public interest, as defined by the FOIA, in disclosure of the records.'
'While the plaintiffs had argued the records should be disclosed to establish whether the Duke was granted preferential treatment when applying for a US visa, the speculation by plaintiffs does not point to any evidence of government misconduct,' it added.
Prince Harry admitted to using drugs in his bestselling memoir, Spare. He wrote that he had first tried cocaine at the age of 17.
'At someone's house, during a shooting weekend, I was offered a line, and I'd done a few more since. It wasn't much fun, and it didn't make me particularly happy, as it seemed to make everyone around me, but it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal. Feel. Different. I was a deeply unhappy 17-year-old boy willing to try almost anything that would alter the status quo.'
Marijuana, he wrote, was different. 'That actually really did help me.' He described smoking it at Eton, along with others, in a tiny bathroom. 'You'd take a hit or two, blow the smoke out of the window … Then we'd all head to one of our rooms and giggle ourselves sick over an episode or two of a new show. Family Guy.'
In another extract, he described, while high, looking out of the window at a fox. 'Maybe it was the weed – undoubtedly it was the weed – but I felt a piercing and powerful kinship with that fox.'
Harry has also revealed he once had a 'delightful trip' on magic mushrooms at a party at the Friends star Courteney Cox's Los Angeles house. After spotting a 'huge box of black diamond mushroom chocolates' and consuming some, he went to the bathroom and hallucinated that the pedal bin was a head. 'I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth,' he wrote. 'A huge open grin. I laughed.'
Harry and his wife, Meghan, moved to California in 2020 having briefly lived in Canada at the start of the year after their decision to step down as working royals and leave the UK.
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