Prince Harry Naked Las Vegas Photos, Top Memorable Stories Of 2012
One of the biggest scandals in 2012 made global headlines thanks to a member of the British royal family.
The face of Prince Harry, the youngest son of the late Princess Diana, dominated news outlets when naked photos of him were secretly taken and leaked.
Prince Harry reportedly invited a group of people to his three-bedroom suite at the Wynn and Encore Hotel after attending a pool party in the summer. The hotel room party became raucous and during a game of strip billiards, the 27-year-old was photographed hugging a naked young woman from behind while she held a pool cue. In another photograph, Harry is shown covering up himself with his hands while only wearing his watch and a thin necklace. Both photos were taken on a mobile phone and sold for approximately $14,000, according to The Telegraph.
TMZ was the first to publish Prince Harry's nude photos on Aug. 21.
Evening Herald ignored a ban from the royal family and ran the infamous photo with the headline "The Naked Prince."
Enstarz reported that when naked pictures of Prince Harry were posted on TMZ, the scandal gave Sin City a major boost in tourism - it increased their audience reach to a whopping 154 million people, according to Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. LVCVA puts the publicity value at $23 million because that is how much it would have cost the agency to reach an audience of that magnitude on their own.
The LVCVA said they have yet to track exactly how much tourism has been generated due to the publicity surrounding the naked photo scandal, but it was enough for their Board Chairman Tom Collins to express fervent attitude in a recent board meeting.
"God bless Prince Harry. He made us a bunch of money," Collins said, according to Las Vegas Sun.
