The extraordinary claim by Rebel Wilson that she was invited to a drug-fueled orgy by a minor royal at an L.A. party was greeted with wry amusement by friends of some hard-partying members of the British aristocracy and minor royals this week.
Dubbed the “narco-toffs” by their peers, there has always been a section of the upper class that has incorporated copious drug-taking alongside the more traditional society pursuits of hunting, shooting, and fishing.
Take the famously dissolute John Hervey, the 7th Marquess of Bristol, who inherited a vast fortune but died penniless from drug addiction in 1999. The writer Anthony Haden-Guest described his parties as places where “cocaine and heroin were catered like flowers.” Hervey kept a…
