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Harry reportedly takes aim at William and Kate in memoir
King Charles can take some New Year’s Day comfort if a report in the U.K. Sunday Times turns out to be true, and Prince Harry has gone easy on him in his forthcoming memoir, Spare. Prince William might be a tad more alarmed. A source with knowledge of the book, which will be published on January 10, said “they did not see how the brothers’ relationship could ever recover,” the paper said.
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“Generally, I think the book [will be] worse for them than the royal family is expecting,” they said. “Everything is laid bare. Charles comes out of it better than I had expected, but it’s tough on William, in particular, and even Kate (Middleton) gets a bit of a broadside. There are these minute details, and a description of the fight between the brothers. I personally can’t see how Harry and William will be able to reconcile after this.”
The source said Harry’s grief about his mother Princess Diana’s death will also be laid brutally bare. “The overall impression is that this is a man who has never recovered from the trauma of his mother dying so young, and then along comes Meghan and he projects on to her a parallel with Diana.”
If Harry does attack William it will follow his claim in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan that his older brother “screamed and shouted” at him at the “Sandringham Summit” where the terms of Megxit were thrashed out. “It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren't true, and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in,” Harry told the documentary.
‘The book’s publication will be marked by two major broadcast interviews—one in the U.K. for ITV by Tom Bradby, the news anchor who Meghan Markle famously thanked for asking if she was OK; in America, Anderson Cooper will interview Harry for CBS’ 60 Minutes. Both interviews are expected to be broadcast a week today on January 8, exact timings to be confirmed.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, October 2018, in Wellington, New Zealand.
Rosa Woods - Pool/Getty ImagesNext: Meghan, the memoir?
Never mind Harry’s tome. Now Meghan is reportedly planning a tell-all of her own. “She fully intends to write this book and leave no stone unturned,” a source told Radar Online. “It’s just a question of timing and how long she wishes to hold out in order to preserve what’s left of her and Harry’s relationship with King Charles, and what they can still eke out of the monarchy in terms of titles and fringe benefits.”
“The feeling at this point is there’s little to lose and she may as well go ahead—and the process is already quietly underway!” the insider told Radar. “It goes without saying that her book won’t pull any punches. The likes of Kate, Charles, Camilla and all those who have stood in her way or made life difficult for her and Harry will be called out and dragged into this. It’s a nightmare for the royals—but Meghan will do whatever she wants and nobody can stop her!”
Virginia Roberts Giuffre holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she says Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually.
Emily Michot/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesPrince Andrew’s accuser could start talking again
Prince Andrew has been quietly eased back into the royal family, with familial church outings and even the odd on-camera appearance, since he settled with his sex abuse accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre in February.
Now, however, a reputed one-year clause to silence Giuffre is apparently due to expire, bringing for Andrew the inconvenient possibility that Giuffre will be back on the airwaves, the Telegraph reports.
Given that Andrew is reported to have paid $14m in the settlement, some observers believe she may have agreed not to repeat her specific allegations about Andrew.
Harry and Meghan’s new documentary struggles to lift off
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was apparently taken by surprise when she learned that an interview she had done for the Mandela Foundation was being repackaged as a Harry and Meghan-fronted Netflix show, and moved to distance herself from the couple and the project when Netflix announced her as one of the stars of Live to Lead. The seven half-hour interviews with individuals such as the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Greta Thunberg were, we have since learnt, actually conducted by film maker Geoff Blackwell and merely topped and tailed with commentary from the Sussexes.
The whole project has more than a whiff of cynical brand extension for the planet’s most famous self-identified compassion campaigners, and the Telegraph describes it as “the televisual equivalent of eating your greens” concluding, “Live to Lead’s stridently upbeat tone curdles into a glutinous fake positivity.”
Needless to say, it’s getting killed on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Skip,” as our colleagues on Obsessed would say.
Subscribe here to get all the latest royal news and gossip with Tom Sykes and Tim Teeman.
Lady Susan Hussey, Baroness Hussey of North Bradley (lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II) attends a Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey on March 29, 2022 in London, England.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty ImagesRace row palace aide to get Coronation invite
Lady Susan Hussey, the royal aide and Prince William’s godmother who demanded where Black charity boss Ngozi Fulani “really” came from, has been invited to King Charles’ coronation—this after she resigned from her post and William himself condemned racism following the incident, saying it “had no place in society.” Hussey later met Fulani at Buckingham Palace and offered her “sincere apologies.”
A source told the Mirror: “Lady Susan received private support from friends during the aftermath of what happened.
“Some politely canvassed the suggestion Lady Susan should be made welcome at the coronation. It was pointed out the many years of service and duty she gave the Queen, to whom she was a loyal confidante. With relations now smoothed over between Buckingham Palace and Ms Fulani, the King is now able to extend an invitation to Lady Susan.”
Will Fulani, founder of Sistah Space, a domestic violence charity for Black women, also be invited?
Honor for former aide who accused Meghan
Jason Knauf, the former royal aide who alleged Meghan Markle had bullied palace staff, has been honored by King Charles in the New Year’s Honors List. Knauf, who was communications chief at Kensington Palace and then chief executive of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Royal Foundation until he left his position in late 2021, was made a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in the list of honors.
Jason Knauf, then Communications Secretary to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in November 2018.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty ImagesAs first reported by the Times of London in March 2021, in 2018 Knauf had sent an email detailing Meghan’s alleged bullying to Simon Case, the duke’s private secretary. The bullying was so bad that two staff members left, Knauf said. One former staff member told the paper: “I had unpleasant experiences with her. I would definitely say humiliated.” Another source said: “There were a lot of broken people. Young women were broken by their behavior.” The source described one member of staff as “completely destroyed.”
The Sussexes denied the accusations, and said they were the victims of “a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation.”
Knauf also told the Court of Appeal (in a case involving the Mail on Sunday), how Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had “authorized specific co-operation in writing” the biography Finding Freedom, claiming Meghan had given him a series of “background reminders” to pass on to authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand. (Meghan apologized to the court, saying she did not remember giving such authorization.)
Ringing the royal changes
King Charles has tried to make as few changes as possible to royal tradition. However, as the Daily Beast said he would in a report before Christmas, it has now been confirmed that Charles will not, like his mother used to, spend over two months of the winter at Sandringham. Instead, he and Camilla are heading to Scotland, with a source telling the Telegraph, “The King and Queen Consort will move to Birkhall and Balmoral. Birkhall is what they consider to be their marital home.”
This week in royal history
On January 3, 1981, Princess Alice of Albany, Countess of Athlone, the last surviving grandchild of Queen Victoria, died at Kensington Palace.
Unanswered questions
What will Harry say about Charles and William in his memoir—and what will he tell Tom Bradby and Anderson Cooper two days before the book is actually published? Will the honor bestowed upon Jason Knauf further worsen relations between the Palace and the Sussexes?
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