Henry of Sussex, called Prince Harry, delivers his rancor and his resentments in a book, pointing out the animosities and the climate of tension which reigns within his family.
Can a royal family, in a modern liberal democracy, publicly expose its disagreements, its arguments and its resentments without this generating disastrous consequences? On this question, which is much more political than it may appear, Queen Elisabeth II had a mantra – “Never explain, never complain” – and above all a lofty view that enabled her to place the superior interests of the institutions and of the parliamentary monarchy at the above personal inclinations. Prince Harry obviously didn’t learn much from his grandmother. It now appears clearly that the young prince, intoxicated by his exile and the freedoms he has allowed himself for a few years, cannot bear to keep the usual public silence about his intimate annoyances.
It must be said that Prince Harry was certainly in high demand by those who were thinking, dollars in their eyes, of the financial fallout from the big unboxing: Netflix and Spotify would have released nearly 100 million dollars for the documentaries and podcasts shot with Meghan Marrkle and the king’s younger son; his publisher Panguin Random House reportedly offered more than $20 million for Harry’s memoir, which was published on January 10, according to British media. Harry was probably encouraged to tell his story; the 38-year-old plunged: he engaged in an incredible exercise of intimate revelations, revealing arguments with his brother, his father, his personal discomfort. The prince also describes how he lost his virginity or how he came to kill 25 Taliban during the war in Afghanistan.
Prince Harry’s memoir, titled The Alternate (Spare in English), published on January 10, will remain as the acme of the family divorce. Prince William and Kate Middleton, King Charles III and his wife Camilla: the one who now lives in the United States with his wife, Meghan Markle, spares no one in this new work, a month after the documentary was broadcast on Netflix Harry & Meghan. In this mini-series in six episodes, the princely couple had above all mentioned the harassment they said they had suffered from the tabloids.
The information brought to the public square by Prince Harry is, in fact, surprisingly detailed. He thus evokes an episode where his brother William would have been violent with him, the fact that he and his brother would not have wanted his father to remarry Camilla, or even the dubious jokes of his father, who would have questioned his relationship to Prince Harry. He also reveals several still unknown facets of his private life, such as the fact that he took cocaine at the age of 17.
Ego and little lucidity on the fragility of the monarchy
In Britain, Prince Harry’s media offensive is quite frowned upon. Several polls, carried out in recent months, show that the young prince has become unpopular. The vast majority of British press titles relay this unpacking in a tone of dismay, judging that the book comes to put salt on wounds that no one wanted to open. “He is on a mission to destroy his family”, writes the Daily Mirror, in particular. The most moderate Observer wonders about this initiative and considers that “no one will benefit” from these revelations, not even Harry. The reflection opens, across the Channel, on the impact of all this on the monarchy. “The book weakens the institution, obviously, because its reputation matters and because, even if it only gives one side of the story, with the documentary on Netflix it describes an institution disconnected from reality, incapable of protect its members when they are vulnerable”, judges Vanity Fair journalist Katie Nicoll, a specialist in royalty, in remarks relayed by Le Monde.
While Charles III is to be officially enthroned as monarch in May, royalty has entered a moment of tension and tension that Harry does not seem to have measured. “Royal family members have become sticking points in national debates about racism, misogyny or wealth. After all, it is an institution that symbolizes inequality [à cause du principe d’hérédité]there are a lot of things at stake”, further analyzes The Observer.
Title The Alternatein reference to his delicate place as second (for a long time, the children of Kate and William having since passed him), behind his older brother William, to succeed Charles when the time comes, Prince Harry’s autobiography reveals the various points friction between Meghan Markle’s husband, her father Charles III and her brother Prince William.
Act one, Charles’ unwelcome joke on the day of his birth. “Magnificent! From now on, you have given me an heir and a substitute – mission accomplished”, would have dropped to Lady Diana the one who was then only Prince Charles, at the birth of his second son, says Harry, as reported The Guardian. A simple joke for some, an unshakable pain for the king’s youngest son, who believes he was regularly hurt by his father’s humor. In his viewfinder, Charles’ jokes about his “real father”.
Still according to Prince Harry, whose DailyMail is echoed this time, Charles III would have regularly had fun saying to Harry: “Who knows if I am really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I am even your father?” And the prince remembered: “He was laughing and laughing, although it was a particularly not funny joke given the rumor that was circulating at the time, that my real father was one of mum’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt. “
the DailyMail finally reveals that Harry and William would have implored their father, in 2005, not to remarry Camilla. Harry says he was particularly worried about having to deal with a “cruel” stepmother […] like all the wicked mothers-in-law in the stories”. “Despite pleas from Willy and I, Pa went ahead. We shook his hand and wished him good luck. No hard feelings,” recalls Harry, however.
Prince William also takes it for his rank, according to the first revelations on Harry’s autobiography. As revealed by Guardian, the youngest son of King Charles III returns to an episode in which we discover a completely different facet of Prince William. Harry explains that during a relatively recent argument, since this one would have taken place in 2019, William would have “grabbed him by the collar, tearing [s]one necklace, and [l’aurait] knocked it down.” And Harry added: “I landed on the dog’s bowl, which broke under my back, the pieces cutting into me.” The subject of this dispute? Meghan Markle, says Harry. Before coming to blows, William would have called Meghan Markle a “rude”, “difficult” and “abrasive” woman. Harry specifies that after his violent gesture, William would have “apologized”. This episode would have left him “with scrapes and bruises,” added Prince Harry.
In another excerpt from Substitute, Harry also claims that his choice for his now famous Nazi costume, which made tabloid headlines in 2005, creating scandal, and for which he finally had to apologize, would have been encouraged by Kate Middleton and William. As revealed Page Six, Harry writes that he hesitated between a pilot’s costume and a Nazi one. “I phoned Willy and Kate, I asked them what they thought of it,” says Harry, assuring that they would have answered: “The Nazi uniform.” Meghan Markle’s husband also explains that when he got home, he tried on the costume in front of them. “They both roared with laughter. It was worse than Willy’s leotard! Way more ridiculous! Which, again, was the point.”
Beyond his startling revelations about his conflicting relationships with his brother and father, Prince Harry also returns in his Memoirs to his cocaine consumption at 17 and his time in the British army, during which he fought in Afghanistan. .
sky news reveals that Harry acknowledges in his Memoirs that he “of course” took cocaine, although he didn’t find the experience “amusing”. He says he used this drug for the first time “at someone’s house, during a hunting weekend”. “It wasn’t very fun, it didn’t make me particularly happy (…), but it made me feel different, and that was my main goal, to feel, to be different”, explains the prince. “I was a 17-year-old who wanted to try anything that would upset the established order. Anyway, that’s what I was trying to convince myself,” he concludes. Harry also reveals that his father then took him to a rehab clinic to meet former drug addicts.
Meghan Markle’s husband also returns, in this new book, to his ten years in the British army, during which he was deployed twice in Afghanistan. Prince Harry was indeed deployed in the country for ten weeks, between 2007 and 2008, then from September 2012 to January 2013, this time as a helicopter pilot. He claims in his Memoirs that he killed 25 “enemy combatants” in Afghanistan. “We shoot when necessary, take a life to save a life,” he added. Information reported by The Daily Telegraph.