DAN WOOTTON: To be published just four months after the death of the Queen and just months before his father’s coronation, Prince Harry’s shameless Me Me Me-moir Spare will be the most damaging chapter yet in his mission to bring down the Royal Family
Prince Harry appears to want to bring down the Royal Family.
There, I said it.
Sadly, no other conclusion can be drawn from his ghoulish decision to press ahead with the publication of his expected monarchy and family-bashing autobiography just four months after the death of Queen Elizabeth the Great and four months before the historic coronation of his father King Charles.
The fragile truce between the new royal regime and the Montecito moaners barely lasted two months, with the book expected to be filled with poison as the Duke of Sussex seeks revenge on those he perceives to have wronged him over the years.
Senior royals and courtiers have lived in fear about this ticking time bomb since its announcement some 15 months ago, but they had hoped the way Harry and Meghan were welcomed back into the Windsor bosom in the days before the Queen’s funeral would allow for a last-minute U-turn.
Not to mention the threat hanging over Harry and Meghan that their children might not be offered royal titles by King Charles if they continue to aim for ultimate damage.
But the all-American publicity hoopla surrounding today’s announcement that the Me Me Me-moir will be called Spare – a knowing reference to his constitutional role as Prince William’s back-up – has dashed any unlikely dreams of any meaningful rapprochement.
The now infamous two-hour Oprah Winfrey interview saw Harry and Meghan throw grenades at Charles, Kate and the monarchy itself, with claims of a ‘royal racist’ who commented on the skin colour of the couple’s unborn baby
‘The publisher Penguin Random House writes: ‘Spare takes readers immediately back to one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow – and horror’
There is now very little doubt Harry intends to go for the jugular, somehow seeking revenge on the father who funded his extravagant lifestyle for decades just as he takes on the job for which he has waited his entire life.
The now infamous two-hour Oprah Winfrey interview saw Harry and Meghan throw grenades at Charles, Kate and the monarchy itself, with claims of a ‘royal racist’ who commented on the skin colour of the couple’s unborn baby.
With such a vendetta in play, just imagine the damage that can be done in a 416-page autobiography, expected to become an international publishing sensation.
Both the Queen Consort Camilla and heir to the throne Prince William are expecting significant incoming, as their personal relations with Harry have frayed in recent years.
The Spanish language version of the book has been given the subtitle En La Sombra, or ‘in the shadow’, a pointed reference to how Harry feels he was treated by the Royal Family.
And the press release announcing the book’s title makes clear his story will be framed around that day in 1997 he was forced to walk behind his mother’s coffin in the full glare of the world, a decision that has seen him come to resent the institution into which he was born, even though it allowed him to live a life of unthinkable privilege.
The publisher Penguin Random House writes: ‘Spare takes readers immediately back to one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow – and horror.
‘As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling – and how their lives would play out from that point on.
‘For Harry, this is his story at last. With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.’
As ever, Harry is being highly strategic by using the grief over the death of his mother Princess Diana in a bid to shield him from criticism for what the consequences of the book will really be.
But what about the grief his father is currently experiencing after the passing of his own mother?
How cruel do you have to be to pile further stress on the man at such a difficult time as he tries to embrace his new role as king while also planning his coronation?
I can’t be the only one who feels increasingly uncomfortable about the way Harry seems comfortable with the commoditisation of his grief over Diana.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised given he is happy to make millions as an employee of Netflix, even though the streaming giant is currently recreating the car crash that killed Diana in Paris and her funeral procession that followed in London which left young Harry traumatised.
What’s unconscionable to me is that Harry can’t put to one side his petty grudges to support his father as he tries to protect the future of the monarchy at a time of great uncertainty for the institution itself as the UK is in the midst of the sort of political instability and social turmoil not seen for decades.
But I fear King Charles and his courtiers are right to be concerned about what his son’s poisoned pen is about to unleash.Or to be more accurate, the pen of ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer who the New York Times reports ‘is known for probing the tensions inherent in father-son relationships’.
There is a commercial imperative for Harry’s merry-go-round of media nastiness, too.
As royal author Valentine Low revealed in his recent book Courtiers, the Duke is convinced his shelf-life as a prominent public figure will only last until his nephew Prince George turns 18.That gives Harry just nine more years to make the hundreds of millions he believes is required to live a life of unbridled decadence, without ever having to go cap in hand to his father or brother to ask for financial support.
With Meghan’s Spotify podcast spewing out her claims of victimhood each week and the couple’s Kardashian-style reality series coming in December because Netflix wants it to air as a companion piece to The Crown, the Sussexes have shown they are prepared to sell their lives for the Hollywood coin.
They are also conscious of the fact that to make the big bucks – Harry is believed to have received a £18.4million advance for this book alone – they have to offer juicy revelations.
If the tissue of lies Oprah interview is anything to go by, however, I personally would expect there to be demands for Spare to be reclassified as a work of fiction within days of its release.
By then, the damage will already have been done.
It’s going to be a very miserable Christmas for the Royal Family, who remain in the dark as to the book’s contents, as the torturous wait for publication day on January 10 continues.
How tragic that Harry will stop at nothing for his version of the truth to be published, to hell with the consequences for his father, brother, the memory of his grandmother or even the future of the monarchy itself.
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