Days after Prince Harry’s memoirs accidentally went on sale earlier with fresh allegations of discord and conflict within Britain’s royal family, a series of television interviews with him will begin airing on Sunday with the prospect of even more damaging attacks on the monarchy .
Harry’s book ‘Spare’, which went on sale in Spain on Thursday five days before its official release, details not only very personal details such as how he lost his virginity and took drugs, but also reveals more intimate personal cases of family disharmony.
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His older brother, Crown Prince William, knocked him down in a fight and the two siblings begged their father, King Charles, not to marry his second wife Camilla, now Queen Consort, the book said.
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Commentators say it has plunged the monarchy into its biggest crisis since the royal soap opera days of the 1990s surrounding the breakdown of Charles’ marriage to his late first wife Princess Diana, the mother of William and Harry.
All of this comes just four months after Queen Elizabeth died and Charles ascended the throne.
“So here’s Charles trying to establish himself as the new king, and now Harry has thrown this hand grenade and everything is collapsing around him,” royal biographer Tina Brown said.
Since Harry and Meghan left royal duties and moved to California in 2020, they have been outraged by the way they have been treated by the royals and the palace establishment.
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From their interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021 to their six-part Netflix documentary series last month and now Harry’s book, the couple’s message has been the same: that the royals and their aides have not only failed to protect them from a hostile and sometimes racist press, but actively leaked negative stories about them.
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So far there has been no comment from Buckingham Palace or anyone speaking on behalf of the royal family, a stance that has been hailed by much of the British media as dignified silence.
There’s no point in being “silent”
On Sunday, Harry’s public musings will keep coming, with three more TV interviews airing. They were scheduled to air ahead of Harry’s book launch on Tuesday and excerpts released ahead of time show Harry saying he wants to give his side of the story.
“I don’t know how silence is ever going to make things better,” Harry says in his interview with Britain’s ITV, which will be shown first.
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Polls show that many Britons are growing weary of all the royal melodrama and further revelations are unlikely to sway their views, whether sympathetic to Harry and Meghan or those who criticize them. However, Harry’s book was No.1 on Amazon UK’s bestseller list on Saturday, available for pre-order ahead of its release.
Royal commentator Emily Andrews said that given Britain’s current cost-of-living crisis, there could be limited support for the complaints of a privileged prince living in a California mansion.
“They’re polarizing, Harry and Meghan, and I think this new Harry book is probably not going to change a lot of people’s opinions,” Andrews told Reuters.
1:02 Prince Harry says he tried to step back from royal duties in private but there have been leaks and stories
“I think it’s gone too far, it’s getting to a saturation point and people are thinking, ‘I don’t want to hear it anymore: shut up, go away.’
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(Reporting by Michael Holden and Sarah Mills Editing by Frances Carey)
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