Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare” drew criticism from the media, commentators, military veterans, and even the Taliban on Friday, as Buckingham Palace remained silent over the widely leaked contents.
After a Spanish-language edition of the memoir erroneously went on sale in Spain, disclosures from the book dominated headlines and airwaves in the days preceding its official release on Tuesday.
The revelations that the heir to the throne, Prince William, allegedly shoved Harry to the ground in a 2019 argument and that he lost his virginity, used drugs, and murdered 25 people in Afghanistan aroused both outrage and ridicule.
A.N. Wilson described the ghostwritten book as “calculated and despicable” and an act of “malice.” It is the largest royal book since Princess Diana collaborated with Andrew Morton on “Diana: Her True Story” in 1992.
‘IDIOTIC’
“Having made the stupid decision to ‘go public’ with his feud with the royal family, Harry was undoubtedly under immense pressure… to spew as much poison as possible,” he wrote in the Daily Mail.
“However, it has presented him in a horrifying light. And despite his intentions, we sympathize not with him but with the Royal Family.”
The book is the latest hostile volley launched by Harry and his American bride Meghan after they renounced their royal obligations and relocated to California in the year 2020.
Since then, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have capitalized on their royal ties by signing hefty contracts for tell-all books and television shows.
The Spanish-language version of the book was immediately taken from shelves after the error on Thursday, but not before media outlets had purchased it, so violating the publisher’s stringent worldwide ban.
The Sun tabloid stated that while people sympathized with Harry, 38, for the anguish of losing his mother as a child and having to grieve in public, “neither can justify the destructive, vindictive path he has chosen, throwing his own family under the bus for millions of dollars.”
In an editorial, it cited “numerous inconsistencies” in his assertions and asked him to heed the advice of his friends to “stop for his own good.”
The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff stated that the book has evolved beyond topics of “uncomfortable public interest” and into the “airing of dirty laundry.”
This week, the US edition of the left-leaning tabloid, which has questioned the role of the monarchy in modern Britain, was the first to publish a leaked excerpt of the book describing Harry’s physical encounter with William.
“The details of the alleged brawl between the brothers in a palace cottage are both almost laughably trivial and heartbreakingly tragic,” she wrote.
#SHUTUPHARRY
Some veterans were outraged by Harry’s boastful and improper statement that he killed 25 people in Afghanistan and compared his victims to “chess pieces” removed from a board.
Tim Collins, a retired colonel who commanded a British battalion in Iraq in 2003, criticized a “tragic money-making scheme” and added, “That is not how you behave in the army, and that is not how we think.”
“Having trashed his birth family, Harry has now turned against the other family that once embraced him, the military,” he added.
Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban official, tweeted, “Mr. Harry! The people you killed were not chess pieces; they were human beings with families awaiting their return.”
As the hashtag #ShutUpHarry began to trend on Twitter, The Sun cited sources close to his father King Charles III as stating he was upset with the book.
Prince Harry Britain’s Prince William, Prince of Wales (L) and Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex follow the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped with a Royal Standard and adorned with the Imperial State Crown and the Sovereign’s orb and sceptre, from Westminster Abbey in London on September 19, 2022. (Photo courtesy of Oli SCARFF / AFP)
However, there was no formal royal response.
In their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry and Meghan denounced an unknown member of the royal family of racism, prompting the only previous royal response to their concerns.
William informed a reporter that his family was “absolutely not racist,” but his late grandmother Queen Elizabeth II famously stated that “recollections may differ.”
In a new clip, Prince Harry states that royals are willing to lie for William.
Craig Prescott, a constitutional specialist at Bangor University in north Wales, told AFP that the “scale” and “ferocity” of the present royal rift are unprecedented, but that the royal family will likely “ride this out.”
The removal of Harry and Meghan’s royal titles would require political involvement and new legislation, which he ruled out.
He stated that the royals would likely view this as “adding fuel to the fire” at a time when they wanted to concentrate on Charles’ impending coronation on May 6.
Through Agence France-Helen Presse’s Rowe