Prince Harry 'manhandled' by AFL great in Las Vegas
Former AFL player Campbell Brown has lifted the lid on a drunken encounter with Prince Harry in a Las Vegas nightclub.
The former Hawthorn and Gold Coast player says he recognised Harry and approached the royal after breaking team curfew at XS Night Club in the Wynn Casino.
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Speaking to Thirsty Camel for the Thirsty for a Good Story campaign, Brown said he was in Vegas with his Gold Coast Suns teammates in 2011 when he broke the team’s midnight curfew and ran into the Duke of Sussex.
“Coach Guy McKenna had been pretty specific, we had a young group, he wanted a 12 o’clock curfew. We sort of agreed on that, went out for dinner and had a few drinks,” Brown said.
“We only had this one night, we trained pretty hard so we felt like we needed to reward ourselves, so I decided that I was going to break curfew. I knew there was a nightclub called XS that was pretty good on a Monday night.
“We’re walking through the back part of XS. I was just looking around and I see a Prince Harry lookalike, a guy with red hair, I said to Matty Warnock ‘Ha, Prince Harry’, we keep walking and then I stop and I look and I go ‘I actually reckon that is Prince Harry!’
“I walk up, there were two skinny sort of guys, they were sort of overlooking the booth he was in, he was sitting in there with three other guys. I said ‘Harry!’ He looks across at me and I said ‘I knew it was Prince Harry!’”
Brown said Harry was sitting in a private booth with some security guards, who weren’t overly keen on the AFL player being so close.
“I thought I’d better keep him engaged here because Scotland Yard standing over there, they were pretty keen to move me along,” he said.
“I’m out of my drink now so I lean in I grab the drink I pour myself a Vodka cranberry!”
“Eventually I’ve got this habit that every hour on the hour I undo a button after midnight.
“I’ve looked down at my watch and it was about two o’clock so I’ve undone my buttons and on comes my favourite ever song, ‘Give Me Everything’.”
Campbell Brown ‘manhandled’ Prince Harry
Brown revealed he was asked to leave by the security guards after “manhandling” the prince.
“I start dancing to this song and I undo my button and I turn to Harry and I start to try undo his buttons and I get a tap on the shoulder saying ‘time to move on mate’.” he said.
“I looked at Harry pleadingly, he’d waved them away the first couple of times and he sort of just said nice to meet you and off I went. You can’t manhandle the prince!”
The 36-year-old also went on to detail how one of the club’s coaches covered up his flouting of the midnight curfew after seeing him partying at 2am.
“One of the coaches came up to me and said ‘Did you break curfew last night?’ I said ‘Nah nah’, he goes ‘So you weren’t at XS last night?’ I said ‘Nah nah’”, Brown recalled.
“He goes ‘That’s funny because as I was walking through the crowd to go to the bathroom with the CEO and a couple of the coaches, I looked up and I saw you. Then as we get a bit closer we see you in a booth with Prince Harry, how do they know each other!?’
“So he took them the long way to the toilet and they never saw me until now I suppose!
“Feels good to be a part of Prince Harry’s wild weekend. He’s probably smart to offload me when he did otherwise there might’ve been a lot more trouble!”
