Harry faces heavy criticism over memoir revelations
The book has moved beyond issues of ‘awkward public interest’ into the ‘washing of dirty linen’ in public, says The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff
Prince Harry on Friday faced a backlash in the UK and beyond over his memoir “Spare,” with criticism from the media, commentators, army veterans and even the Taliban, while Buckingham Palace kept silent on the widely leaked contents.
Days before the official publication on Tuesday, disclosures from the book dominated headlines and airwaves ater a Spanish-language version of the memoir mistakenly went on sale in Spain.
Revelations such as how heir to the throne Prince William allegedly pushed Harry to the ground in a 2019 row to how he lost his virginity, took drugs, and killed 25 people in Afghanistan prompted both condemnation and derision.
Writer AN Wilson called the ghostwriten tome -- the biggest royal book since Harry’s mother Princess Diana collaborated with Andrew Morton for “Diana: Her True Story” in 1992 -- “calculated and despicable” and a work of “malice.”
Describing his decision to go public “idiotic,” Wilson said the book had merely succeeded in making the public sympathise with the royal family, “not with him”.
The book is the latest hostile blast from Harry and his American wife Meghan ater they quit royal duties and moved to California in 2020.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as they are formally known, have since cashed in on their royal connections with several lucrative contracts for tell-all books and programmes.
The Spanish-language version of the book was hurriedly withdrawn from shelves ater the blunder on Thursday but not before it had been purchased by media outlets, wrecking the publisher’s strict worldwide embargo.
The Sun tabloid said that while people sympathised with Harry, 38, over the trauma of losing his mother as a child and having to grieve in the public eye, “neither can justify the destructive, vengeful path he has chosen, throwing his own family under a bus for millions of dollars.”
In an editorial, it pointed to “countless discrepancies” in his claims and advised him to listen to friends who have urged him to “stop for his own good.”
The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff said the book had moved beyond issues of “awkward public interest” into the “washing of dirty linen” in public.
The US edition of the let-leaning newspaper, which has questioned the monarchy’s role in modern Britain, was the first to publish a leaked extract of the book this week, in which Harry described his physical altercation with William.
“The details of the brothers’ alleged punch-up in a palace cotage are at once almost ridiculously trivial and heartbreakingly sad,” she wrote.
Harry’s claim to have killed 25 people in Afghanistan and likening his actions to removing “chess pieces” from a board, has been seen as boasful and inappropriate, and enraged some veterans.
Retired colonel Tim Collins, who led a British batalion in Iraq in 2003, condemned a “tragic money-making scam”, adding: “That’s not how you behave in the army. It’s not how we think.”
“Harry has now turned against the other family, the military, that once embraced him, having trashed his birth family,” he added.
Another high-ranking veteran who served in Afghanistan, colonel Richard Kemp, said his comments would “feed militant propaganda.”
Senior Taliban official Anas Haqqani tweeted: “Mr Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; They had families who were waiting for their return.”
As the hashtag #Shutupharry began trending on Twiter, The Sun quoted sources close to his father, King Charles III, as saying he had been saddened by the book.
But there was no official palace comment. The only previous royal reaction to Harry and Meghan’s complaints was ater they accused an unnamed member of the royal family of racism in their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
William told a reporter the Windsors were “very much not a racist family,” while his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, witheringly said “recollections may vary.”
Craig Prescot, a constitutional expert at Bangor University in north Wales, said the “scale” and “ferocity” of the current royal rit was unprecedented but the royal family would probably “ride this out.”
He ruled out any moves to remove Harry and Meghan’s royal titles, which would require political intervention and new legislation.