A load of hypocrisy to spare in new book
THE Herald Sun has snared an advance copy of the foreword of Harry’s new book, Spare … I am not writing this book as the prince I was born to be, but as the everyday humanitarian I choose to be. But being a prince means the book’s worth $48,000 a page, so there’s lots in here about that, too.
I will tell the highs, the lows, the mistakes and lessons learnt. Mostly my highs and the lows, mistakes and lessons learnt by other members of my family thanks to my tell-all interviews.
The book is full of insight, revelation and hard-won wisdom, especially the bits about Kate and Wills written by my wife – Saint Meghan, I call her.
Spare is as an intimate and heartfelt memoir. It will be honest and captivating and show me as I am: an inspiring, courageous, uplifting and modest human. The idea for the book came to us while we were flying in our private jet on the way to London to educate schoolchildren about their carbon footprint.
The title Spare relates to my growing up, not as the heir, but the neglected spare hiding away in a $26m sun-soaked Montecito mansion. I’m not the spare anymore, having been shuffled down to fifth place by the three Cambridge brats, but the book’s dust jacket had been printed by the time someone worked that out.
When I say “I”, I really mean “We”. We felt entitled to write this book and release it now that our beloved Granny, the Queen, is no longer around to fact-check its contents.
For once, here is a first-hand account of my life that’s accurate and truthful. Well, we had to sex it up a bit to keep the publisher happy, but I’ve never let facts get in the way of my heartfelt truth-telling.
As many of you will know, I have always been passionate about fighting injustice. In this case, it’s the injustice of my own life; the hardship I faced as a member of one of the wealthiest, most privileged, most adored families in the world.
I left the royal family because it was a cross between living in the Truman Show and a zoo. I escaped to live a more honest and peaceful life, as I detail in this book, our TV series, our podcasts and our high-profile interviews. Our lives are much more private now thanks to these lucrative and impactful creative activations.
As I extol at length in this 416page book, which is all about the intimate thoughts of me, myself and Meghan, we care a lot about privacy.
In the past I’ve turned my back on friends who have talked to the press, but this time it’s different because it’s me doing the talking.
I didn’t see a way out of the royal family – I was trapped like my brother and father in a life spent travelling to tiny little godforsaken countries halfway across the world to cut ribbons. My life is much better now because I get paid to trash my family ties and cash in on it at the same time.
I wrote this book because I wanted to make my mum proud and use my platform to really affect meaningful and lasting change. The first and most important change is that Meghan and I are now paid for everything we do.
We’ve been paid $20m for this book and all the proceeds (anything left over after we pay for the house, security, new cars, private jets, clothes, etc) will go to charity. Meghan and I particularly enjoy helping others … helping them see how hard our lives are.
Regardless of my royal role, my life was always going to be about public service.
Wherever I am in the world, it’s always about serving the public and serving up many examples of my pain, loneliness and hardship as a member of the British family. These are tales that can be told from the beaches of Mustique, the wilds of Africa, the tax haven of the Cayman Islands, the ski fields of Aspen – anywhere!
As a global humanitarian I care for the farmers of Mongolia, the soldiers of Sudan and the children of Ukraine. I know their struggles. I felt the same pain when trapped in the gilded cages of the royal palaces of Britain and Europe.
There’s already been a lot of interest in this book and many words from my detractors have been used to describe it.
I say bold, they say entitled. I say impactful, they say goddamn awful. I say inspired, they say WTF.
I say Spare, they say Spare Us.