Prince Harry Reflects on ‘Past Mistakes’ After Wearing Antisemitic Costume When He Was 20

Prince Harry is speaking out against antisemitism.

In an essay for the subscription-based British magazine New Statesman, the Duke of Sussex, 41, said, “We must stand against both anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hate.”

The father of two, who came under fire in 2005 when he was 20 years old after being photographed in a Nazi costume with a swastika around his arm, acknowledged his previous lapse in judgement in the article.

“I am acutely aware of my own past mistakes — thoughtless actions for which I have apologised, taken responsibility and learned from,” he wrote, per People.

“That experience informs my conviction that clarity matters now more than ever, at a time when confusion and the distortion of truth are doing real harm — even when speaking plainly is not without consequence,” he said. “It requires responsibility from all of us.”

King Charles III‘s younger son previously addressed the controversial costume in his 2023 memoir, Spare.

According to Today.com, Harry explained that he was attending a party — which had the “cringy” theme of “natives and colonials” — thrown by Prince William‘s friend.

The next day, photos of Harry in the offensive getup made the front page of tabloids with headlines that read: “Harry the Nazi” and “Royal Nazi.”

Harry reportedly wrote in Spare that the aftermath was a media “firestorm” he thought “would engulf” him.

“There were moments over the course of the next several weeks and months when I thought I might die of shame,” he said. “When I saw those photos, I recognized immediately that my brain had been shut off, that perhaps it had been shut off for some time.”

Now, Harry — who shares Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 4, with wife Meghan Markle — said in his essay for New Statesman that the recent rise in antisemitism in the U.K. is “deeply troubling.”

“That should alarm us, but also unite us,” he wrote, per People. “Because hatred directed at people for who they are, or what they believe, is not protest. It is prejudice. Recent incidents… have brought this into sharp and deeply troubling focus.”