Prince Harry’s new book ‘Spare Bombs’ exposes him as grumpy and self-absorbed

Throughout history, princes have been killed by bloodthirsty siblings, bloodthirsty parents, bloodthirsty Catholics and Protestants, gout, ulcers, the French, a barrel of malvasia, and hunting accidents. But Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, has just made history as the first prince to actually be killed by nothing less than his own quill.

Harry – or Aitch, or Harold, as we recently learned he is also called – certainly wrote, or at least helped write, a memoir called Spare.

Australians woke up Friday morning to find that despite the supposedly Bond-worthy degree of secrecy surrounding his publication, Guardian a journalist and greedy Spanish booksellers managed to thwart a carefully planned and meticulous global media spread of the royal family’s story the following week.

The dirt was well and truly smeared, and it was immediately posted on the Internet for everyone to see. Biggest revelations: that he, Prince William’s brother, “begged” his father King Charles not to marry his wife, Queen Camilla; that he killed 25 people during his two trips to Afghanistan; that he took cocaine and mushrooms; that he had lost his virginity to an old woman in a field behind a pub; and this Grand Duchess falling out between his wife Meghan and Kate, now Princess of Wales, was based on the former telling the latter that she had a “baby brain”. (It will be interesting to see how this centuries-old release mess might affect book sales.)

Let’s be honest – it’s juicy, it’s a car crash of pain that you can’t look away from, it’s Bold and beautifulworthy family farce, and in all this there is one obvious loser – Harry.

If ever there was any doubt about the royal family’s lack of judgment, his self-centeredness, selfishness and need for heaps of therapy, here they are.

On a few hundred pages and in exchange for a claimed check for $29 million, Harry has just managed to do what he has long accused the British press of doing – a devastating blow to his reputation.

The man who stepped off the page Spare (based on what has been published by the British and American media with the Spanish copies of the book) is a man full of eternally raging anger and malice, who is ready to humiliate his family in front of a worldwide audience.

In the battle for hearts and minds that he and Meghan seem eternally obsessed with, in their insistence on fixing the narrative so that they are seen as blameless victims of the ancient institution that trapped them, the Duke instead managed to sabotage what position he left.

If Harry thought Spare parts the publication would cause a universal outpouring of sympathy, because he suffered the terrible humiliation of being born second and into a dirty, imperfect family, then he is in for a very unpleasant surprise that no amount of milk-free ice with a taste of matcha cream or crystal workshops is going to fix.

If the almost six-hour Netflix series Harry and Megan drew H as a cyclist, a California dad, then SpareAt least what we know about her, thanks to those rebellious Spanish booksellers, is an unedifying, sometimes disgusting journey through the subconscious of a man who seems eternally distressed. (No one in the world needed to know that he and Brother William were circumcised, or the details of how he lost his virginity.)

The Duke is like a man who not only humbly refuses to grow up, but is also filled to the brim with vinegar and bile, and whose willingness to throw his Charles, Camilla, William and Kate under the bus seems a little vicious.

Long gone is the evening prince—here is the perpetually angry prince.

And that’s why Harry is the one who has the most to lose in all of this.

‘Cause really what damage will Spare hurt the family and institution with which he has such a problem, and how much more harm will his desire to reveal everything cause him?

Okay, the king comes across as a callous, aloof father who seems to be better at gardening than hugging. William is portrayed as a violent bully who acted like an “heir”, and he and his wife Kate look like uneducated upper-class goons because they encouraged him to wear this Nazi outfit.

It’s all deeply unflattering, but what’s most revealing here is that his decision to expose it all speaks volumes about Harry, a man willing to tell stories and details that embarrass and humiliate his family.

In fact, he just looks a little stubborn. Peter Pan.

Moreover, this person has not yet shown that he can take responsibility for his actions. It’s William and Kate’s fault that he wore a Nazi uniform to a dress-up party in 2004, not to mention he already had one of two options.

The press is to blame for William not seeing the incredible gift to the monarchy that was Meghan, with Harry saying that during the 2019 Dog Bowl Biffo incident after William called her “difficult”, “rough” and “abrupt” , Harry responded by telling him that he was a “parrot”.[ing of] press story” about the former actor.

In 2009, Harry caused outrage after he was filmed calling one of the Sandhurst officers “Paki” and telling another, “You look like a daredevil.”

He writes: “My father’s office issued an apology on my behalf. I also wanted to get another one, but the staff of the Royal House told me: “I do not advise.” Not the best strategy, sir.

“To hell with strategy. I wasn’t interested in strategy. What really bothered me was that people thought I was racist.”

Is this an acknowledgment of what he said and did? Or was he more concerned about how the public would perceive him?

What about lesser-known moments, like when in 2005 he said of his Zimbabwean girlfriend Chelsea Davy, “You know, she’s not black or anything”?

Or what he said to comedian Steven K. Amos, “You don’t look like a black guy”?

If anyone had it down their throats with the most miserable prince since Hamlet say all these monologues, then look away and plug your ears. What follows is at least four hours of new Harry interviews with British ITV, American 60 minutes, good morning america and The Late Show with Stephen Colberthere, they will impose on us.

Ultimately, the story that Harry tells the world Spare it is not about his own suffering, but about his willingness now to make others suffer as well.

We hope someone in all of today’s hype remembered that they might need to tweak their Archewell website where the slogan still says “Leadership with Compassion”. This is one statement that no one can swallow right now.

Daniela Elser is a writer and royal commentator with over 15 years of experience working with a range of leading Australian media outlets.