Prince Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’ was maligned by the British media on Friday. (file)
London:
Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare” was called “vengeful” and “calculating” by British media and commentators on Friday as Buckingham Palace remained silent on widely leaked material.
Days before its official publication on Tuesday, the book’s revelations hit the headlines after a Spanish-language version of the memoir went on sale in Spain by mistake.
Revelations such as Prince William, the heir to the throne, allegedly pushed Harry to the ground in a 2019 row over how he lost his virginity, took drugs and killed 25 Taliban in Afghanistan prompted both condemnation and derision.
Author Ann Wilson collaborated on The Ghostwriting Tome – the biggest royal book since Harry’s mother Princess Diana in 1992 for “Diana: Her True Story” – was “calculating and haughty” and The work of “hatred”.
‘Idiot’ –
He wrote in the Daily Mail, “Having made the unwise decision to go ‘public’ about his rift with the royal family, Harry was no doubt … under immense pressure to spew as much venom as possible.”
“But it has cast her in a terrible light. And whatever her intention was, it makes us sympathize not with her, but with the royal family.”
The book is the latest outburst of hostilities after Harry and his American wife Meghan stepped down from royal duties and moved to California in 2020.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, as they’re formally known, have cashed in on their royal ties with a number of lucrative contracts for all kinds of books and shows.
The Spanish-language version of the book was hastily withdrawn from shelves after the mistake on Thursday, but not before it had been purchased by media outlets, overriding the publisher’s strict worldwide ban.
The Sun tabloid said that while people sympathized with Harry, 38, for grieving the trauma of losing his mother as a child and in the public eye, “neither can justify his destructive, vengeful path”. , who threw his family down a million-dollar bus”.
In an editorial, it pointed out “countless inconsistencies” in his claims and urged him to listen to friends who have urged him to “stop for his own good”.
Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir called the book a “sour cherry on the rancid cake” of Harry and Meghan’s other assorted appearances and interviews in which they have targeted their family.
Gabby Hinscliffe of The Guardian said that the book had gone beyond issues of “strange public interest” into publicly “washing dirty linen”.
The left-leaning paper, which questions the role of the monarchy in modern Britain, was the first this week to publish leaked excerpts from the book in which Harry described his physical altercation with William.
He wrote, “The details of the brothers’ alleged punch-up in a palatial cottage are almost ridiculous and heart-wrenching at once.”
‘red mist’ –
Sh network ITV and US broadcaster CBS were given exclusive interviews with Harry to be broadcast on the Sunday before Tuesday’s publication.
Speaking about the controversy with William, Prince Harry said in a clip of his chat with ITV, “I saw this red haze in him.” “He wanted me to hit him back, but I chose not to”
“I want reconciliation, but there must be accountability first,” he says.
As the hashtag #ShutUpHarry started trending on Twitter, The Sun quoted sources close to his father, King Charles III, as saying he was hurt by the book.
But there was no official palace comment.
The only previous royal response to Harry and Meghan’s complaints came when they accused an unnamed member of the royal family of racism in their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
William told a reporter that the family was “not a very racist family” while his late grandmother Queen Elizabeth II famously said “recollections may differ”.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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