Prince Harry Once ‘Brazenly’ Popped a Mystery Pill into a Journalist’s Mouth to Test Her Trust

Prince Harry had an unusual way of breaking the ice in his party-prince days.

The anecdote comes from journalist Charlotte Griffiths, who detailed the encounter in a first-person essay the Daily Mail published on Wednesday, July 8. Griffiths explained that she first met Harry, 41, in December 2011 at a shooting weekend on a 4,000-acre Hampshire estate, back when she was “a 27-year-old trainee journalist working on a gossip column” for The Mail on Sunday.

Seated next to the prince at dinner, Griffiths wrote that Harry “decided to kick start our relationship by subjecting me to a little test.” She continued: “From his pocket, he removed a small white pill. Then he held it up to my face, popped it on to my tongue, and said with a smile: ‘Now I know I can trust you!'”

In the article, Griffiths admitted she quietly got rid of “that white pill he’d so brazenly stuck in my mouth (which I discreetly removed and folded into a napkin soon afterwards),” she wrote, adding that she believed “it was almost certainly paracetamol [known as acetaminophen in the U.S.], rather than something more sinister. But I couldn’t be entirely sure.”

Despite the odd introduction, Griffiths said the moment kicked off what she called “a short and utterly surreal friendship” with the man who was “then third in line to the throne.”

She went on to reveal more about the prince’s party habits from that same weekend, writing that he opened up “with uncharacteristic seriousness” about giving up recreational drugs because of “the risk of random Army drug tests.”

Instead of cocaine, Griffiths said Harry told her he’d turned to creatine, a legal supplement that, inhaled in powder form, “provides a burst of energy that keeps one dancing till dawn.”

Griffiths, now writing about the friendship 15 years later, said she’s only sharing the stories now because Harry’s own legal battle against the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday pulled their old friendship into public view during recent court proceedings, according to the report.

As In Touch previously reported, Harry accused Associated Newspapers — which publishes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline — of acquiring private information through illegal means like hacking his phone.

Earlier today, the case was dismissed after Nicklin found that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove Harry’s allegations against the publisher.