The Real Villain of Spare, and of Prince Harry’s Life Story, Is the Media
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below."
By the time Prince Harry's book Spare hit the shelves (well everywhere except Spain that is), its content had gone from being intensely-anticipated to intensely-dissected. With days of headlines having already planted the key takeaways firmly in people’s minds, reading the whole thing was always going to be a journey punctuated by familiar landmarks.
But there is no doubt that Spare in full gives you a picture that individual anecdotes from this extraordinary life story do not. The dominant themes are skilfully woven like a thread through JR Moehringer’s manuscript: Harry’s unresolved grief for Princess Diana; being the Spare vs the Heir; how the military and Africa are his sanctuaries and, of course; the media, the media, the media.
Spare
amazon.com
$22.42
amazon.comIn reading only extracts about physical attacks and leaking of stories you would be forgiven for thinking that William is the villain of the piece. Indeed, he is unflatteringly portrayed at times as someone who loses his temper and likes to pull rank. He will undoubtedly be horrified at the level of disclosure about his personal life, and defensive about the depictions of Kate (although they are not really that bad—being uptight about a bridesmaid’s dress and begrudgingly lending a lipgloss to Meghan are as damning as it gets). But, whether intentionally or not, Spare also portrays William as someone who cares deeply about his younger brother, even if Harry (or should we now call him Harold) writes that he no longer believes it.
The portrayal of King Charles is also not that unflattering. He perhaps won’t thank his son for telling the world that he travels with his childhood teddy bear and does headstands in his boxers. But the King comes across as someone who did his best and (despite a notable lack of hugs) treated his sons with great tenderness. Granted, he appears at times petty over his position—apparently wanting Kate to call herself Catherine with a K because there were already two royal cyphers with a C. Harry also suggests that the one-upmanship over who does the most royal engagements or gets the most press when out and about is very much real. But, if anything, you come away from the book with the impression that Charles made more time for his sons than has previously been understood.
Camilla’s part in the story is much smaller than the volume of headlines would suggest. Despite believing he was sacrificed “on her personal PR altar” (a reference to the fact Harry thinks stories were leaked through her or people close to her), there is no sense that Harry is consumed by resentment of the Other Woman. Indeed, he appears thrilled when a first meeting with him and Meghan and Charles and Camilla goes well.
The real villain of the book, and of Harry’s life story every time he tells it, is the media. The level to which he is consumed by hatred of the press is apparent at every turn; from cursing himself for holding his father’s hand when attending church after his mother’s death because it gave the press a picture they wanted, to his fury at the paps he calls Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. The book is full of anecdotes about journalists and photographers, most unnamed but it is clear that Harry has studied them all.
In interviews to promote Spare, Harry’s desire to always make the media at fault is at times difficult to subscribe to—for example, his declaration to ITV’s Tom Bradby that the press was entirely to blame when outrage was expressed at Lady Susan Hussey’s comments to Ngozi Fulani. However, the book itself allows for a more compelling understanding of his scathing views. It is overwhelmingly clear that the role the paparazzi played in his mother's death still haunts him. You can feel how much it has affected him, in the wake of this, to be trapped in a gilded cage, having to worry about unsolicited photographs and the breaking of confidences at every turn (even though it is now true that the royals do not get physically pursued by photographers in the way that Diana was). You can see why he would have mounting frustration throughout his youth when things that he knew to be untrue were published then left uncorrected. He is by no means alone in his outrage at phone-hacking, but for him this is intensely personal.
Spare also lifts the lid on the PR machine of the royal household which Harry portrays as by no means saintly. He declares that it was “a bare-faced lie” that he was William’s best man. His accusations of leaking and planting stories, both by William and Charles’s offices are not as fleshed out as the reader might want but there are a couple of notable examples. Harry writes that a Sun journalist was “likely working in concert with the Palace” when he published a story about the Sussexes wanting to step back.
Spare stops short, however, of making a case that there is some kind of free-flow of information between the Palace and the media. The reality is, the reason Harry’s book is so shocking is because we knew so little of it before. Just how bad the brothers’ relationship had become—and how it was never quite what it looked like all along—was well-hidden for much of the time things were clearly falling apart behind the scenes. We didn’t even know, for goodness sake, that they called each other Willy and Harold. That’s how tightly-controlled the flow of information was. Until now.
Having never fully subscribed to the view that Harry’s desire to write this book was motivated by money, the end of the manuscript made me think again on this point. His description of the desperation he and Meghan felt when their security was being pulled; their knowledge that they couldn’t live in Tyler Perry’s house forever and the eye-watering sums he was being quoted to keep his family safe make it clear just how much money, in the end, became a pressing issue.
Yet there is also most certainly something of a catharsis in this process for the Prince. Having sat back and seen his story told by others—often incorrectly—he has now put it all out there for himself. If we were ever in doubt that it was control he wanted rather than privacy, here is our answer.
Harry does not seem to see the contradictions that exist because of this book: The fact he says he wants to have frank conversations with family after having put details of previous frank conversations in the public domain and totally broken trust; the fact that he has done to others what he so hated being done to himself through putting their personal stories out there.
He is not oblivious, however, to the irony of supplying the media with a deluge of the kinds of personal stories he has sought to keep out of the papers for years. “I fully accept that writing a book is feeding the beast,” he told ABC news. There is no shortage of details— from losing his virginity to Meghan’s labors with their two children and an ongoing anecdote about his “frostnipped” penis after a trip to the North Pole.
Yet in trying to save himself from the persecution of false narratives, one wonders whether the Prince has also sacrificed himself. A poll has shown that Harry’s UK popularity has fallen in the wake of Spare's content. The royal family has said absolutely nothing and are faring no worse.
There is no doubt that Harry’s story is heartbreaking at times and it would be hard to come away from reading Spare without feeling some compassion for him. If you do end up caring about him when you finish this book, you may find yourself turning the last page and hoping that he does not wake up one day and wish he could take it all back.
You Might Also Like
