Allies of the British royal family have rejected Prince Harry’s claims in his new memoir that he paints the monarchy as a cold and unfeeling institution that failed to nurture or support him.
Key Points:
- Spare goes into much more detail than any previous royal revelation
- It follows an interview with Oprah Winfrey and a six-part Netflix documentary released last month
- The replacement will be released worldwide on Tuesday
Buckingham Palace has not officially commented on the book, but British newspapers and websites are full of quotes from unnamed “royal insiders” refuting Harry’s allegations.
One said his public attacks on the royal family affected the health of Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September.
Veteran journalist Jonathan Dimbleby, a biographer and friend of King Charles III, said Harry’s revelations were of the type “you’d expect … from a B-list sort of celebrity”, and that the King he would be hurt and frustrated by them.
“His concern … is to act as head of state of a nation that we all know is in quite a difficult position,” Dimbleby told the BBC.
“I think he’ll think that gets in the way.”
Harry’s book, Spare, is the latest in a series of very public statements by the prince and his wife Meghan since they left royal life and moved to California in 2020, citing what they saw as the racist media treatment of Meghan, who is biracial. and the lack of support from the palace.
It follows an interview with Oprah Winfrey and a six-part Netflix documentary released last month.
Harry is not the first British royal to publish family secrets – his parents used the media when their marriage broke down.
Charles contributed to Dimbleby’s 1994 book and accompanying TV documentary, which revealed that the then-heir to the throne had had an affair during his marriage to Princess Diana.
Diana gave her side of the story in a BBC interview the following year, famously saying “there were three of us in this marriage” in reference to Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles.
But Spare goes into far more detail about private conversations and personal grievances than any previous royal revelation.
In the ghost-written memoir, Harry talks of his grief over his mother’s death in 1997 and his long-held resentment of his role as royal ‘spare’, overshadowed by the ‘heir’ – older brother, the Prince William
She recounts arguments and a physical altercation with William, reveals how she lost her virginity (in a field), and describes her use of cocaine and cannabis.
He also says he killed 25 Taliban fighters while serving as an Apache helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, a claim criticized by both Taliban and British military veterans.
Prince Harry says his troubled relationship with the royal family was “never meant to be this way” in an interview with CBS. (Reuters: Hannah McKay)
The replacement will be released worldwide on Tuesday. The Associated Press obtained an advance copy in Spanish.
Harry has said he expected counterattacks from the palace. He has long complained about “leaks” and “plants” of stories in the media about members of the royal household.
In an interview to be broadcast on ITV on Sunday, one of several he has recorded to promote the book, Harry says people who accuse him of invading his family’s privacy “don’t understand or don’t want to believe that the my family has been reporting to the press.”
“I don’t know how staying silent is ever going to make things better,” he said.
AP