It is a silence Prince Harry has described in his book as “deafening” but the Royal Family is sticking to a tried and true format as it continues to come under fire in Spare, Harry’s highly anticipated memoir released today.
As queues formed outside central London bookshops ahead of the midnight release, Buckingham Palace was still refusing to comment on the bombshell allegations in Harry’s new book and announced that the king will resume official duties after the holidays with a visit to a community project in Aberdeenshire on Thursday.
There has been no comment on Spare’s release in which Harry writes about how his father was not cut out for solo parenting, that he was never able to grieve his mother’s death, how he and Prince William have been on separate paths since Diana died and his no holds barred account of the rift with his brother. Quoting (from his recollection) private conversations between himself, his brother William and their father King Charles, the extent of the familial rift which caused the late Queen so much distress is laid bare in the 407 pages of Spare.
Harry details physical brawls between him and William and explains that the heir to the throne could not understand Harry’s decision to leave the royal family. He also recounts the now infamous fall out between Meghan and Princess Kate over Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress, revealing that Kate texted Meghan to say that her daughter was in tears because her dress did not fit her and that Kate insisted Meghan had new dresses made days before the wedding.
A seemingly innocuous anecdote about lip gloss also highlights the froideur between Kate and Meghan for the very first time.
The royal family is said to be in shock at the extent to which Harry has divulged private family details and conversations in his book. William is said to be so angry that he cannot speak to his brother while Charles is understood to be “deeply hurt,” according to a family friend. Meanwhile Queen Consort Camilla, who has perhaps suffered the most personal attack, was said by the same source to be “astounded” by Harry’s allegations which include damaging claims that she planted stories in the press to rehabilitate her own image and that the family briefed against him and Meghan.
In the book, Harry writes that while he loves his stepmother and was relieved she was not the “wicked stepmother” he feared she would be, there was a time when he considered Camilla “dangerous” “leaving bodies in the street” as Harry claims, she sought marriage to Prince Charles and ultimately the Crown. During an interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday, he told Anderson Cooper that Camilla was the “third person in the marriage” and he considered her “the villain.”
Insisting that he is now “at peace” with the fact that they are married, Harry also told interviewer Tom Bradby he is happier than ever.
However, The Times recently reported that Harry told publishers he wanted to pull the book after returning to England for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations and seeing how frail his grandmother was. After the Queen died in September, the book was back on.
As Harry continues to promote Spare, the repercussions of his devastating memoir are now becoming apparent. Despite telling Bradby that he hoped for a reconciliation with his family, even suggesting there could be work for him to do in the Commonwealth, he then told Cooper he didn’t think it was “ever going to be possible” to resume his role as a working royal adding that he has not spoken to his father, brother or stepmother “for quite a while.”
Katie Nicholl
Source link
