Prince Harry and his family’s attendance at this year’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in London was already under question, given that he has said he does not feel safe returning to the U.K. without police protection, which the British state has declined to offer as a matter of course.
Now, authoritative royal biographer Tom Bower, who is working on a biography of Meghan Markle, has said that he believes that Harry is using security issues as an “excuse” not to come home.
Bower told Closer magazine he believes the real reason Harry will not want to see his family is because of his bombshell memoir, which is due to be published just a few months after the special four day national holiday in June.
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Bower told Closer: “I think the notion that he’s worried about his own security and needs the Met Police is an excuse, and that, sadly, we won’t see him or Meghan back in the U.K. anytime soon. And I think Harry won’t come back because he knows he cannot face his family, and be pleasant with them, knowing what he’s written about them in that book.”
Bower did not claim to be speaking on the basis of briefings, but he is a hugely respected writer. He most recently authored a devastating book on Prince Charles, Rebel Prince, which revealed that Charles once arranged for his own bed to be shipped to a friend’s house when he went to stay.
Bower added: “That book will have a lot of casualties and cause a lot of hurt. It will really deliver, as Harry knows it has to, to justify the money he’s been paid to do it.
“How can Harry come back and pretend it’s all fine? The worst of what he will say is yet to come.”
Harry is reputed to have been paid $20 million for the memoir, which is due to hit stores this fall. Harry said, when the deal was announced, that it would be “wholly truthful” and “written as the man I have become.”
It is widely expected that the book will tell the inside story of the implosion of Diana and Charles’ relationship, and Harry’s impression of his father’s affair with Camilla. There has been speculation it may be particularly unsparing of his father, with whom Harry has had a strained relationship since leaving the royal family. Harry told Oprah Winfrey that after his family cut him off financially, his dad stopped accepting his phone calls for a spell.
Harry has made a few short trips home but has not brought his family back to the U.K. yet, meaning that the queen, who turns 96 next month, has never met her great-granddaughter Lilibet.
Harry has said that he wants to bring his family to the U.K. but cannot do so safely since he was stripped of high-level police protection.
Bower told Closer, “The next few months will be the ultimate test for Harry, the ultimate dilemma. He insists he adores his grandmother, so will he come back to support her at Prince Philip’s memorial service, and will he come back to support her and celebrate her reign in the Platinum Jubilee? These are milestone moments and, sadly, time is running out.
“If he doesn’t come back, it’s a clear statement of where lies his loyalty and his own interest. He’s had many opportunities to return home and spend time with his family—and hasn’t—but this really will show where his and Meghan’s mindsets are. And if they don’t come back soon, and Lilibet doesn’t meet the queen and Harry doesn’t celebrate her life and reign with her, it could be something he comes to regret forever.”
