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Anxiety over the content of Prince Harry’s memoir is growing in the royal family’s inner circle, with one source telling The Daily Beast that a particular chapter in the book could cause “big trouble” for King Charles.
The royal insider told The Daily Beast: “There is one chapter in particular that could spell big trouble for Charles.” However, they did not say what revelations the chapter in question detailed.
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The source did say that their understanding was that the book is still likely to be published according to its original timetable before the end of the year. Publishers Random House did not respond to a request for comment on the issue, however their website still says the book is due out “late” this year.
The Palace declined to comment to The Daily Beast on the claims about the book, or to say whether the king’s office had gained sight of Harry’s manuscript.
The fresh rumors swirling about the book are likely to stoke anxiety at the Palace after another week of intense activity by Harry and Meghan Markle, and as the Palace gears up for a brutal media onslaught, with further Archewell podcasts, a new series of The Crown (the new trailer for which was released Thursday), Meghan and Harry’s Netflix show, and Harry’s book all expected to drop between now and Christmas.
While courtiers are moderately sanguine about both The Crown (the simple “it’s made up” message seems to be cutting through domestically at least) and the Netflix docuseries that Meghan has promised will explore the couple’s “love story,” Harry’s book is seen as a different order of threat.
It’s perhaps easy to see why.
Meghan’s credibility was seriously damaged by comments she made in an interview with The Cut, including saying that she was told her wedding was hailed in South Africa as an event of similar significance to the freeing of Nelson Mandela. In a soft-soap interview with Variety published this week, she said her mistake had been to be too “trusting” with the journalist in question.
Her lightweight Variety interview, in which she praised the late Queen Elizabeth and did not trash the royals, was seen by some as a sign that her attacks on the Palace may be abating.
One source, a friend of the family, told The Daily Beast: “It is interesting that when she isn’t slagging off the royals, Meghan has very little of interest to say. There was nothing in the [Variety] interview that would trouble the royals. If this is the tone the Netflix show is going to take, then I think it might be a good deal less problematic for the family than has been assumed. The worst could be over.”
Valentine Low, author of Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown and royal editor for the London Times, told The Daily Beast: “It was interesting that Meghan, in her Variety interview, was very conciliatory. She spoke warmly about the queen and was certainly not stirring up controversy. I think that might be taken as an encouraging sign that, ultimately, they are moving on and looking to the future.”
But if Meghan has said all she has to say, the perception is that Harry has very definitely not.
The insouciance with which Palace insiders now regard Meghan’s attacks is in marked contrast to the alarm that the prospect of a full-blooded assault on the monarchy by Harry still provokes.
Harry is, of course, the ultimate insider, and his first-hand account of the collapse of his parents’ marriage will be impossible for the Palace to brush aside with a variation on the queen’s tart line after the allegations of racism in the Oprah interview that, “Some recollections may vary.”
Intriguingly, Low told The Daily Beast that he had knowledge of a meeting between Harry and a private individual (not a Palace staffer) while Harry was in London. The person gently suggested to Harry he might go easy on his family in the book but, Low says, “Harry was not very receptive to the idea.”
It seems probable that the book will explore Harry’s own trauma and mental health story. Indeed, Harry used a conference appearance Wednesday evening (in support of Betterup, the mental health coaching firm he works for as Chief Impact Officer) to launch a fresh attack on Britain’s royal family for neglecting his mental health, saying that he never heard the word “therapy” when he was a working member of the royal family, in what could easily be interpreted as a swipe at the monarchy for failing to take care of his and his wife’s mental health.
This has long been a cause of anger for Harry and Meghan: Meghan told Oprah Winfrey that when she approached staff at the Palace seeking mental health support, she was told to abandon the idea as it would reflect badly on the institution. She said she contemplated suicide.
She subsequently said in one of her recent podcasts that it was Harry who found her a therapist.
Harry told Oprah that it was Meghan who encouraged him to get therapy, although he previously told journalist Bryony Gordon, in a 2017 podcast recorded shortly after he met Meghan, that he had undergone therapy at the urging of friends and other people including his brother, William.
As ever with the Sussexes, even if the details are somewhat confused, the big picture is clear: They believe the royal family has demonstrated a cavalier disregard for their wellbeing. They have appeared to want revenge, but whether the book can truly deal a knockout blow to Charles is now the big debate.
Low, for one, is not convinced that even the most furious outpourings of the scorned second son could seriously impede the overall progress of the monarchy.
He said: “While Harry could certainly make revelations that are damaging and produce days or even weeks of headlines, and tropes that get wheeled out for years to come, I think his book is unlikely to be terminally damaging for either the king or the royal family. You only have to look at ‘Tampongate,’ when Charles was recorded having literally the most embarrassing phone call (with Camilla, imagining being her tampon—revealed to the world in 1993), you could possibly imagine. He survived it, indeed, he married Camilla and she is now queen.”
While it is probably not in Harry’s long-term interests to reveal something so devastating that it forces the king to abdicate (even if he had the receipts) it is, whether the Sussexes like it or not, their ability to dish on the royals that is their most valuable product.
As one media executive told the Daily Beast: “Netflix doesn’t care about Meghan’s quest for social justice. They just want to know if James Hewitt is Harry’s dad.”
They might think otherwise but it is the Sussexes’ insider knowledge of the secrets of the world’s most powerful family that has secured them the lucrative media contracts that now finance their multi-million dollar lifestyles.
How far Harry is prepared to go to satisfy his commercial paymasters is the question that is now keeping some at the Palace awake at night.
