(Original title: Prince Harry publicly bombarded! Can the British royal family uphold the credo of “no complaints, no explanations”?)
News from the Financial Associated Press on January 9 (edited by Zhou Ziyi)Britain’s Prince Harry delivered another high-profile blow to the British royal family in a television interview on Sunday. It is reported that his high-profile memoir “Spare” will be published soon.
Prince Harry gave two interviews recently, on ITV’s Tom Bradby’s program and CBS’s “60 Minutes” hosted by Anderson Cooper.
In the interview, Harry took a swipe at the royal family and blamed his family for fueling some of the negative reports about him and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
In the “60 Minutes” program, Harry said, “It all started when they reported my wife with lies every day, so that Meghan and I had to flee our country.”
The couple has now moved to the United States to live, and they have a son and a daughter. Prince Harry is now fifth in line to the British throne, behind his older brother Prince William and his three children.
The breaking news of “Spare”
Harry’s autobiography “Spare” was originally scheduled to be released on January 10 and translated into 16 languages, but its Spanish version was mistakenly released in advance last Thursday, which made the content exposed in advance.
Some of the fierce material in “Spare” not only contains a large number of personal details of Prince Harry, his many dissatisfaction with the British royal family, but also includes the killing of 25 Taliban fighters during his service in Afghanistan.
In his memoir, he describes his drug use, revealing that he started using cocaine at the age of 17. He also revealed that he was stripped of his virginity by an “older woman” in an open space outside the bar.
In addition to his personal experience, Harry also revealed a lot of royal disputes. He spoke of how his older brother Prince William physically attacked him during an argument because he opposed his marriage to Meghan. The argument had resulted in a visible scar on Harry’s back.
The book also states that after the death of Princess Diana, he and his brother William begged his father Charles not to marry Camilla. He expressed concern that Camilla would become an “evil stepmother”, but ultimately neither insisted. Charles married Camilla, now Queen of England, in 2005.
In his memoir, Harry suggested that Prince William and his wife, Catherine, Princess of Wales, encouraged him to dress up as a German Nazi officer at a masquerade ball in 2005. Prince Harry’s look sparked national repercussions and he was widely criticized for it.
The royal family will be in a whirlpool
Harry’s series of interviews comes at an awkward time for the royal family, just four months after Queen Elizabeth died and Charles took the throne. His memoirs and public interviews may once again plunge the British royal family into a vortex of public opinion.
Harry is also understood to have refused to commit to attending his father Charles III’s coronation in May.
Royal author Tina Brown, author of the recently published “Royal Papers”, says the royal family’s “never complain, never explain” motto may become increasingly difficult to maintain in the future.
“It’s always a disaster when they (the British royal family) try to explain it on TV. So they have to keep calm anyway and carry on as usual,” Brown said in an interview.
She added that Harry and Meghan’s narrative is now widely accepted as fact in the US, but Prince Harry also had “enough self-sabotage” in the book to undercut his popularity abroad.
The BBC’s royal correspondent, Sean Coughlan, said Buckingham Palace’s strategy had been to “avoid getting involved in libel and hope the controversy will settle on its own.”
“But unlike before,[Harry’s]book is wider and more impactful.”
Coughlan added, “It’s a difficult balancing act for royal officials. If they don’t respond, then the only version (of the royal family) in front of the public is Harry’s version. Difficult to refute on some very personal matters.”
Royal biographer Andrew Morton said that the truth revealed in Harry’s book is not conducive to the royal family, “this is a real problem for the royal family.”