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Prince Harry may have done a “massive disservice” to himself by sharing some of the episodes included in his tell-all autobiography, a royal commentator said. In his memoir titled Spare, the Duke of Sussex shared intimate details about his private life, including his mental health, and wrote extensively about his relationship with the press and his role in the Firm as the second son of the King.
However, the memoir also included a few complaints which, royal commentator Jonathan Sacerdoti claimed, made Harry “look quite petty”.
Asked whether the Royal Family should respond to the allegations and criticism raised by Harry in the book, the commentator told Express.co.uk: “It’s really hard to say whether they should respond, because this stuff is damaging, there is no question about that. But on the other hand, I think it backfires to some extent.
“I think it is much more damaging to Harry than he had perhaps anticipated.
“I think it has done a massive disservice to him to share some of the information and stories he had.
“I think it made him look quite petty at times. One example that comes to mind is the stuff about how his home in Kensington Palace was dark because it was in the semi-basement and one of the Queen‘s staff parked too near the windows casting a shadow over his life.
“And, bearing that in mind, I think yes it’s damaged the Royal Family potentially but it also did quite a lot of damage to Meghan and Harry themselves, and maybe the Palace will be counting on the damage to Harry and Meghan being greater than the damage to the Royal Family and not respond, so far that’s what they have done.”
The episode recalled by Mr Sacerdoti dates back to when Prince Harry moved onto Kensington Palace grounds, in an apartment he described as “in the semi-basement of the Palace”.
Harry described his home as “half buried”, adding the situation was made worse whenever an adviser of Queen Elizabeth II at the time, which the Duke called “Mr R”, parked his Land Rover Discovery in front of his windows, “blocking out all light”.
In Spare, the Duke wrote he had “politely” asked the Queen’s aide to move his car by “a few inches” and, when this didn’t happen, Harry accused Mr R of asking the Queen to tell her grandson to stop complaining.
READ MORE: William publicly responds to Harry claims for first time
The tell-all memoir, which was ghostwritten by Pulitzer Prize winner J R Moehringer, promises to be packed full of explosive revelations and insight into the Royal Family – and there’s even an audiobook read by the Duke of Sussex himself.
You can buy your copy of Spare on Amazon.
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Royal fans have cast doubt over some of the claims made by Prince Harry in his new book Spare as one allegation is proven to be completely untrue.
From claiming that his stepmother Queen Camilla leaked stories about their first meetings to inaccurate dates, some of the allegations are being put under the microscope.
Find out more HERE.
Harry added Mr R’s wife was somehow “guilty of a traffic violation even more inexcusable than her husband”, as she parked her car in a place once used by the late Princess Diana.
Other headline-grabbing episodes included by Harry in the book include his numerous references to his “todger” which, in April 2011, suffered from frostbite after he had taken part in the Walking with the Wounded initiative in the North Pole.
After speaking about the discomfort he felt, Harry recounted being advised by a friend to apply to the sore area an Elizabeth Arden cream Diana used to use on her lips.
The mere smell of the cream, the Duke said, made him feel as if his mother “was right there in the room”.
The book also featured more serious episodes, including the allegation the Prince of Wales had physically attacked his younger brother during a heated discussion about Meghan Markle in early 2019.
Episodes aiming to show how the relationship between the Duchess of Sussex, Prince William and Kate, Princess of Wales, had been lukewarm at best since the very beginning were also included in the 416-page memoir.
Neither Buckingham Palace nor Kensington Palace have yet responded to the accusations and criticism lobbed at them by Harry.
Mr Sacerdoti said the Palace has historically shown it has different ways to respond to claims – but they are not “trigger happy” when it comes to responding to the Sussexes.
He also said: “I think they want to just get on with their work.
“I think sometimes they are choosing to react either with silence, which is a reaction of sorts, or with action, which is find some ways to disprove or dispel the myths that some people think.
“If anything does explode massively, then they may release a statement like they have done after the Oprah Winfrey interview or the Ngozi Fulani episode.”
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