Prince Harry memoir, 'Spare,' released
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • last year • 49 commentsBy: Patrick Smith
LONDON — Prince Harry's memoir was released Tuesday, not only offering new details on the British royal family's bitter internal feud after days of bombshell revelations and promotional interviews but also describing how he fell headlong in love with his future wife, Meghan Markle.
While many of the details from the book, titled "Spare," have already been reported, its release at midnight Monday local time (7 p.m. ET) will allow the public to get their hands on a copy of a memoir filled with glimpses into a rarified family riven by disagreement and distrust.
A poster advertising the launch of Prince Harry's memoir "Spare" in a store window on Jan. 6, 2023 in London.Leon Neal / Getty Images
While often affectionate about his family, particularly his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, Harry describes the breakdown in the relationship with his older brother, Prince William, and how his father, now King Charles III, appeared concerned at being overshadowed by his sons and their wives. Something Harry says he noticed after announcing his engagement to Meghan.
Harry, 38, said his father couldn't stand "someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him."
Harry contends that by planting negative stories in tabloid media, the royal family shared culpability in Harry and Meghan feeling the need to leave the country for their own safety. A throughline throughout the book is his deep and constant fury at the media, which he says he believes helped kill his mother, Princess Diana; "persecuted" the royals; and "waged a ruthless campaign" against Meghan.
"There was a new low every few minutes," Harry wrote of the time after their relationship went public in November 2016. "I'd been braced for the usual madness, the standards of libels, but I hadn't anticipated this level of unrestrained lying."
"Above all, I hadn't been ready for the racism. Both the dog-whistle racism, and the glaring, vulgar, in-your-face racism," Harry wrote.
Some of the book's most eye-catching passages include allegations that Harry's brother and heir to the throne, Prince William, physically attacked him during a dispute; that his stepmother, Camilla, the queen consort, leaked private conversations to bolster her reputation; and that his father, King Charles III, had pleaded with his sons not make his final years "a misery" with their arguing.
Prince Harry and Prince William at the unveiling of a statue of their mother, Princess Diana at Kensington Palace in London on July 1, 2021. Dominic Lipinski / AFP - Getty Images file
The publication of such a frank and revealing account is a near-unprecedented event in the centuries-old history of Britain's royals, who as Harry has pointed out double as both a family and national institution. The book has led to questions over whether it could deal lasting damage to the monarchy, even asking whether its future existence is now less certain.
The monarchy's overall popularity rating has halved from plus 44 to plus 18 since September 2022, according to new figures from the British polling company YouGov released Tuesday.
"There may be some lasting damage to the reputation of the royal family — but not to the extent of undermining consent for a monarchy," Suzannah Lipscomb, a Professor Emerita at the University of Roehampton and a royal historian, told NBC News. "In terms of public opinion, I suspect it is Harry's popularity itself that will be most greatly diminished."
Almost two-thirds of the British public now hold a negative view of Harry, with just a quarter expressing a positive view, according to the YouGov poll. This means that Harry's net favorability rating is minus 38, the lowest it's ever been and a far cry from 2011, when he had a score of plus 65.
Meghan's popularity has fallen to minus 42, YouGov said. Although she remains slightly popular with 18- to 24-year-olds, her support even among this group has fallen sharply.
Harry's confessions and accusations may have hurt his reputation in Britain — just as his mother, Princess Diana, was criticized for sharing details of her divorce from Charles in a famous BBC interview in 1995.
But that criticism might not be the case in his adopted homeland, Lipscomb said.
"Harry comes across as deeply troubled and aggrieved, and there is a sense that he has stepped over a line: Discretion is still valued on this side of the pond, and these revelations have nearly exhausted public sympathy. My sense is that U.K. public opinion is that Harry has gone too far," Lipscomb said.
In writing such a searing account of his life, and granting a flurry of interviews during which he openly discusses the deep rift with his father and brother, Harry could be mirroring the stereotype of the emotionally open and uncomplicated American — an image that clearly appealed to him even before he met Meghan.
Harry describes how he had been warned from childhood that Americans were "Too loud, too rich, too happy. Too confident, too direct, too honest," but that he felt differently. "'Nah,' I always thought. 'Yanks didn't beat about the bush, didn't fill the air with polite snorts and throat clearings before coming to the point. Whatever was on their mind, they'd spit it out, like a sneeze, and while that could be problematic at times, I usually found it preferable to the alternative.'"
He also describes how he fell quickly in love with Meghan Markle after seeing her picture on a friend's Instagram.
"This woman stopped the conveyor-belt. This woman smashed the conveyor-belt to bits. I'd never seen anyone so beautiful," Harry wrote.
"There was an energy about her, a wild joy and playfulness," he added. "I'd never had a firm opinion on that burning question: Is there just one person on this earth for each of us? But in that moment I felt there might be only one face for me."
The book follows the couple's Netflix series, which aired many of their grievances over the course of six hours. Harry has also sat down for high-profile TV interviews to promote the ghostwritten memoir. The royal palaces have declined to comment on the memoir and interviews. The Sussexes, through Archwell, have declined to comment on the record.
Tourists walk around Buckingham Palace in London on Jan. 6, 2023. Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
Harry has said that he still wants a reconciliation with his family and believes one is possible, but asked whether he had burned his bridges with his father and brother, Harry told ITV in an interview conducted in December that aired on Sunday: "I'm not sure how honesty is burning bridges. You know, silence only allows the abuser to abuse, right? So I don't know how staying silent is ever going to make things better."
He has also spoken to CBS' "60 Minutes" and ABC's "Good Morning America," and he will appear on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert."
His family had gotten "into bed with the devil" to gain favorable tabloid coverage, he has said.
While Harry has waged war against the British media and its intrusion and negative headlines, the saga has been a huge boost for the British papers — which have enthusiastically covered every twist and turn, including the publication of his much-anticipated book.
"The only winners here are the press who are feasting over the corpse of a once-loving fraternal relationship," said experienced royal commentator and former British newspaper journalist Emily Andrews.
"I don't think Harry and Megan's public image is repairable in the U.K.; I think it's gone beyond that," she added.
The end of the book details the days leading up to the public and surprising break with the royal family, as Meghan and Harry took their small family first to Canada and then the U.S. He says that the queen, under pressure from her household, rescinded an invitation to meet and, he hoped, discuss the ongoing familial tensions.
Regardless of the danger he felt his family was in, and the disappointment with his family, Harry said he would "forever support my queen, my Commander in Chief, my Granny. Even after she's gone."
"My problem has never been with the monarchy, or the concept of monarchy. It's been with the press and the sick relationship that's evolved between it and the palace. I love my mother country, and I love my family, and I always will."
In going to war with the media and turning his version of events into prime-time viewing, and certain bestsellers, Harry has also squabbled publicly with his family. Only time will tell whether this rift is irreparable.
The more he talks, the more he sounds like an entitled brat.
That was my first thought. Whatever happened to that stiff British upper lip?
I think he has really lost it. A lot of his excerpts from the book sound like a child wrote them.
Then even the name of his book 'spare'. I can only think has has severe problems dealing with always going to be second fiddle to his brother, so he lashes out to get attention.
Harry's lips are attached to Meghan's ass.
Of course, you know that kind of comment is probably what disturbs Harry the most. Besides how would you know where Harry's lips have been?
That is from an old English saying about the monarchs having children. You need two; "An heir and a spare."
I think the book title refers to his being "second fiddle" to William all his life, simply because of their birth order.
I am sure this is the case because he alludes to that in one of his interviews.
Which is more or less what the quote you show says.
after watching game of thrones twice thru, monarchies seem to be more interesting with lots of graphic sex and violence. this current british version is pretty lame. hopefully kate will get caught humping a commoner by spring...
Arvo...and what really miffed the pair of them off more than anything...
No royal titles for their kids as that is prestige plus in the States...and that one literally got under their skin.
Harry is not alone. Being born a royal ‘spare’ has always fuelled rage and resentment
Edward, Harry, and Margaret
If there’s one thing that we can agree on in the turbulent wake of Prince Harry’s endless eye-raising royal revelations, it is that being a “spare” is fraught with complexity. We might assume that being born into wealth and privilege, with none of the regal responsibilities of the heir, is the golden ticket for a gilded life. Or at least a rollicking sense of fun. All that pomp and pleasure without the daily chore of Court Circular circumstance. Yet the pleasure-seeking existence of the hallowed sibling seems to have sent royal spares of history into personality freefall, robbing them of a critical sense of purpose and identity while fuelling rage and resentment.
In his autobiography, pointedly titled Spare, Harry makes his claim for the enduring anguish of his birth position. The term “heir and a spare” refers to members of the monarchy and aristocracy who require two children; one to succeed to a title, the other to guarantee the family line should anything happen to the first born. Harry says of his family that they merrily referred to him as the spare, “without a spirit of judgment but straight out. I was the shadow, the supporting actor, the Plan B. I was brought into this world in case something happened to Willy.”
It’s clearly painful and difficult to gain a worthy sense of self when you are regarded as a substitute. Constantly playing second fiddle is undermining. Who are you really, apart from a genetic also-ran? As Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth II’s younger sister, said unhappily when she learned that her parents were to become King and Queen, and her sister, Elizabeth, the future Queen, in 1936: “I used to be Margaret of York and now I am nothing.”
Princess Margaret was seen as the black sheep of the family - Getty Images
Princess Margaret was a spare in Harry’s mould, as she was the younger – and only – sibling of the Queen. While she was “heiress presumptive” to her father’s throne, she struggled with a sense of sibling rivalry, just as Harry has described an astonishing level of competitiveness between him and William. Princess Margaret once said: “I have never suffered from ‘second daughter-itis’. But I did mind forever being cast as the ‘younger sister’. Bright and intellectually capable, Margaret resented that she was largely uneducated, being denied the tutoring by Henry Marten, provost of Eton, that her sister benefitted from.
Frustration seems to be a psychological birthmark of the royal spare. Princess Margaret threw a childish tantrum over the gowns that she and her sister were to wear for their father’s coronation in 1937. While both she and Elizabeth were dressed in purple velvet mantles edged with ermine, she was apoplectic when she discovered that her train was cut slightly shorter than her sister’s. ‘Twas ever thus. To be in the perpetual second-best shadow of a sainted sibling, especially on a global stage, creates a peculiar sense of aloneness, which Harry endeavoured to articulate in his television interview with Tom Bradby. Always “feeling different” from royals with a rock solid primogeniture is an unenviable challenge to overcome.
The Queen Mother with Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle in England on 8 July 1941
Like Harry, whose royal popularity was at one time unrivalled, Princess Margaret was the Diana of her day in the late 1940s. The press and public could not get enough of her beauty, glamour and modern style. Once the cynosure of the Royal family, considered the most progressive member, after her marriage to Anthony Armstrong Jones ended and her affairs turned desultory, Margaret’s solitude was tangible. She became seen as the black sheep of the family; a spoilt, unfulfilled woman who drank too much and partied too hard to drown out her furious despair that her marriage to Captain Peter Townsend was forbidden. Like Harry, outraged that his wife wasn’t more warmly welcomed into the regal fold, it’s easy for the disgruntled spare to retaliate and tarnish the wholesomeness of the monarchic ideal.
Ouch! A 'royal' neurosis. Note: Harry "endured" while the 'select' royals were 'merry' and blunt and flippant about the 'seconds' in the rankings. It is a hard place to be, especially when one is 'blue-blood' and falls in love with a person considered out of bounds. It is "two" strikes against him. Detesting the media and its games: the third. And, so he and Meghan are out and out of the UK, literally.
Princess Margaret, unlike Harry, didn't marry the love of her life, due to her duty. Harry, not only got to marry his, he gets to keep his title, unlike Edward.
I always felt that Princess Margaret got a bit of the shaft, since she was unhappy in life and if getting the shaft is living fat.
I felt the same way. She was denied permission to marry him, and sort of spiraled into some pretty lousy coping mechanisms. She then later got to watch while Charles got to marry his divorced mistress, while she hadn't been allowed to marry her divorced fiance. Being royal meant a lot of sacrifice for her.
Hypocrites the lot of them.
Thank you for sharing. I understand you may have been to or lived in England and have a better sense of the royal family than me who am not versed in royals in any way and lack any real world personal experience with being in country there where stories and insights 'drop' with all intent to explain and contextualize the truths about the people who make up a long-lived dynasty.
Brain-dead move. Too much inbreeding.
How utterly stupid for a Royal to go public with private matters.
He's got a book to sell, and nothing sells like controversy.
Let me add 'slimy' to my list of adjectives.
I care about Harry and Meghan and the royals about as much as I do the Kardashians, which is to say not at all.
Harry's interviews prove he is not bright, at all...
Not too many people have had their image fall as fast as Harry’s has without a crime being involved.
I considered watching the Netflix series but the more I heard of his sound bytes the less interested I became. He comes across as a whiny brat. I can see why his brother wanted to smack him.
But dear old dad doesn't sound like a peach, either
I always take these kinds of things with a grain of salt.
Put two brothers in separate rooms and ask them about what happened during one particular fight and you will get two different answers.
So I kinda tend not to believe everything he says as we will never hear from the other parties involved.
LOL! Familiar with that! My brother was always re-writing history
My brother was good at that too. He was older so it was always we were bothering him...
Several times my father wouldn't believe anyone over the other so we all got punished.
Line up for a spanking....Haha
My brother always started it but my mom never let me tell my side of the story. She liked him better than me
That was her little boy now! Haha
My Dad always favored my sister. I guess with 3 boys and 1 girl, he had a soft spot for her. She could get away with a lot more than us.
I do think my dad liked me better than he liked my brother
Mothers and sons and fathers and daughters.
Freud wasn't so wrong.
I go to great pains not to play favorites between my 3 kids. they all have their unique skill sets and they're all way ahead of me professionally and financially, than where I was, at their ages. what more could any parent ask for.
I always used to get blamed for the shit my 2 sisters pulled...
I want pretend to understand the nuances, intrigues, trappings, dramas, or histories of an authentic family- after all I was cut off from my people through hook or crook many, many generations ago. But, this young man is cut from a different strand of royal 'cloth' and it seems to be anchored in what the media did to the first most important woman and her children in his life and is now doing to the second most important woman and his children.
He has had enough. He is 'full to the brim.' Still he wants to fight because it is clear he has a fighting spirit.
He wants the monarchy to change for the better. That is, to get out of bed with royal 'exploiters' exploding the monarchy for trifling excesses. All at the expense of him, a 'blue blood' and his 'charge' of a racially-mixed family.
I can see 'it' even though I won't pretend to understand it.
Harry yearns for relevance.
British royalty became irrelevant in 1776.
Now they are fucking figureheads.
Yawn....
Here is a old clip of Harry and William:
ugh. I remember seeing this when it was first broadcast.
I used to think he and William were the only well-adjusted members of the royal family. Well, and Princess Anne, who could get away with being very blunt because she wasn't likely to inherit.
Now I think he's a whiny little brat.
He's not coming off too well.
Harry complains and whines but he forgets just how good he had things
Arvo...we are just pleased he and her didn't lob in down here...you can have them with our blessing...🦘
Roll on the Republic...🐨
Gee, thanks, LOL!
I been hearing they are contemplating New Zealand for their next move ....might have them as closer neighbors ....
Nah..never happen..not enough glitz and glamour in the Land of the Long White Cloud for them...😃
only the shadow knows ....
well he being a backup to a back up to a backup etcetra and the only thing he is good for now is as an organ donor for his brother ( read that somewhere recently) being a "direct sibling" (maybe ?)...her being a C list celebrity thats not that celebratory ..... yeah , ill ask the shadow , he always knows ....
That's funny..never thought about him being an organ donor etc..
Some people just don't realise how well off they are. Us mere mortals really couldn't give a flying fig about them or their world ideas.. especially while they sit in their Mega mansions preaching about world affairs...
He thinks if he reunites with his family, that will send ripples around the world!!!
Hate to tell ya Harry but that is about as off as a bucket of prawns in the sun...you doofus..
Hey! We're not part of the colonies any more! They either need to go back to Canada or you Aussies need to take your turn baby sitting
Morning Troutie.. nope...we don't want them here either...even us convicts and colonials have our standards..
We would have deported them long ago...😁🦘🐨
I wish Americans were more like Aussies. We put up with everybody's crap
... I don't.