Whether you agree with Prince Harry or not, whether you find him to be a grand-stander, attention-seeker, traitor to his family or not, nobody could possibly deny he’s had a tough time of things.
I suppose, to some, Harry can be seen as a freeloader of the public purse and a turncoat to the Royal Family. I suppose, to some.
But I don’t see him that way.
I’ve just completed his book SPARE, a gift for my birthday from my daughter Avery.
I won’t go into details other than I enjoyed the book. To me it’s an honest rendering of what life is like to be a prince, a royal, and an act in a very public circus. Yes, some unfortunate things are said about his father, his brother, and even his grandmother, but as human beings, they’re far from perfection so the odd wart shouldn’t come as any real surprise. The pettiness, squabbling, sense of entitlement, ego, and bruised feelings are part and parcel of anyone’s life from time to time. We all have our imperfections that we keep to ourselves or share with only certain people, often family. Imperfections we prefer to keep out of the public eye. And the royals are no different. Charles may be king, but he’s also flesh and blood, and as human as the rest of us, foibles included.
Of course, the Royal Family isn’t accustomed to someone from within doing the writing, breaking the code as it were, and being somewhat forthright about the relationships that exist within the family and the toxic relationship between the family and the British press. Pa, Willy, and Grandma, if she were alive, could offer counterpoint to the book’s assertions, but of course they won’t because, well, that’s not how things are done.
Being a royal is no easy task. Your life, essentially, is not your own. What you do, how you do it, and who you do it with is everyone’s business and everyone has an opinion, often a strong one.
The salient point for me is the media, particularly the British media, and how repugnant they are in the doing of their business, to the point of criminal harassment. Even worse are the buzzards known world-wide as the paparazzi, or “paps” as they are referred to in the book. The very same people who hounded Harry’s mother Diana since she joined The Firm, robbing her of her privacy and that of her children, chasing her down that Paris tunnel to her death, snapping pictures of her lifeless body, swirling around the corpse like jackals.
The same people who hounded Harry and his young family, particularly his wife Meghan, her every move and every word turned into a national scandal. After all, she’s American, an actress, divorced, and, ahem, bi-racial. Misogyny and racism all in the same bottle with these folks, male and female both.
As far as I’m concerned, Harry can write a book all he wants, just like you and I can. He can be part of a Netflix series with his wife all he wants, just like anybody else appearing in a Netflix series.
What he shouldn’t have to deal with are death threats, invasions of privacy, and the speculative colour of his children’s skin.
I’ll leave the details of the book to you. As to whether he should have written it? Sure, why not? Nobody else was speaking up for him, for his wife, for his children, so why not give the man the right to speak up for himself?
If King Charles III can’t handle it, tough. If heir William, now Prince of Wales and future king can’t handle it, tough as well. Camilla and Kate? Same, I guess.
It appears that Charles has cut Harry off from everything.
The kid lost his mom when he was twelve and never got a hug from his pa, or his grandma for that matter. Protocol and all that old chap, can’t very well be touching the monarch, even if you’re a grandson.
With emotional detachment like that growing up, it’s amazing this guy has been part of crafting what appears to be a normal family. More normal, it seems, than the one that’s turned their backs.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 