Prince Harry's 'Spare' is a mess of contradictions, but as an insight into the royal reality, it is as singular as it is strange. @claire_lampen writes https://t.co/FYSJgNqNVA
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) January 14, 2023
16. King Charles <3 his teddy bear"I remember him murmuring ominously: I nearly didn’t survive. How had he? Head down, clutching his teddy bear, which he still owned years later. Teddy went everywhere with Pa. It was a pitiful object, with broken arms and dangly threads, holes patched up here and there. It looked, I imagined, like Pa might have after the bullies had finished with him. Teddy expressed eloquently, better than Pa ever could, the essential loneliness of his childhood."
15. Prince Charles was jealous of his son's press coverage“Willy did everything he [King Charles] wanted, and sometimes he didn’t want him to do much, because dad and Camilla didn’t like Willy and Kate getting too much publicity,” he writes.
He goes on to detail a time where Kate allegedly had a visit planned to a tennis club on the same day King Charles, then Prince of Wales, had a public engagement. According to Harry, one of the monarch’s press officers called William to ensure there were no photos of Kate holding a tennis racquet.
“Undoubtedly that kind of photo would have pushed dad and Camilla off every front page,” he writes. “And that couldn’t be tolerated under any circumstances.”
14. Royal family members refer to Harry as "the Spare"13. William ordered Harry to shave his beard for his wedding to Meghan Markle"Harry writes that he had to ask Queen Elizabeth for permission to keep his beard for his wedding, as he was getting married in his Army uniform and beards are forbidden in the British Army. He pointed out that he was no longer in the service, Meghan had never seen him without the beard, and it had become something of a “security blanket” for him. “Granny” gave him the okay.
But his brother hit the roof. They argued for “more than a week,” with William accusing Harry of putting their grandmother in an uncomfortable position. Then, Harry writes, he discovered the real issue:
At one point he actually ordered me, as the Heir speaking to the Spare, to shave.
Are you serious?
I’m telling you, shave it off.
For the love of God, Willy, why does this matter so much to you?
Because I wasn’t allowed to keep my beard.Harry, unlike William, kept his beard for his wedding. And he eventually got back at his brother with a hair-related jab; in the book’s introduction, Harry references William’s “alarming baldness, more advanced than my own.”
12. Harry feels he existed to be William's organ donor:"The Heir and the Spare – there was no judgment about it, but also no ambiguity. I was the shadow the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy. I was summoned to provide backup, distraction, diversion, and, if necessary, a spare part. Kidney, perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow. This was all made explicit clear to me from the start of life’s journey and regularly reinforced therafter."
11. Meghan was too familiar with KateHarry recalls that before a joint appearance at the Sussexes’ and the Waleses’ Royal Foundation Forum in 2018, his wife asked to borrow Kate’s lip gloss because she forgot hers. “Kate, taken aback, went into her handbag and reluctantly pulled out a small tube,” Harry wrote, according to the New York Post. “Meg squeezed some onto her finger and applied it to her lips. Kate grimaced.”
A few months later, Kate, who was pregnant, forgot something minor in conversation and Meghan joked that she had “baby brain.” Later when the couple sat down for tea to hash out their differences, Kate and William said the remark wasn’t appreciated. Per the Today Show:
“You talked about my hormones,” Kate allegedly said of the comment. “We are not close enough for you to talk about my hormones!”
The offense was evidently so great that Kate was allegedly gripping the upholstered side of her chair so intensely that her fingers went white, according to the book. Harry described his wife as looking perplexed about the reaction, as Meghan said the words simply reflected the way she would speak to her own friends.
But Kate wasn’t the only one offended. Harry recalled the Prince of Wales also lashing out about the perceived slight, pointing a finger at Meghan and calling the remark “rude.”
Harry noted the Duchess of Sussex responded by asking William to “take your finger out of my face.”
10.The royals are not huggersCould we have guessed this? Sure. But it’s still pretty horrifying to learn that Charles (allegedly) didn’t even hug Harry after telling him his mother was in a car crash and “didn’t make it.” Harry wrote, according to the New York Post, “Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances, how could he be expected to show them in such a crisis?” He added, “His hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be OK.’ That was quite a lot for him. Fatherly, hopeful, kind. And so very untrue.”
Elsewhere in the book Harry says that William “recoiled” and “completely freaked” that Meghan hugged him when they first met. Strangers are supposed to curtsy when meeting William, but Meghan didn’t know and Harry didn’t think she needed to follow protocol. “Willy didn’t hug many strangers,” Harry says. “Whereas Meg hugged most strangers.”
9. William and Kate were massive 'Suits' fans
8. Harry says William gaslighted him about their fight
7. The two princes call each other "Willy and Harold"
6. Harry begged Charles not to marry Camilla
5. William and Kate thought it would be funny if he dressed in a Nazi costume
4. Harry lost his virginity to an older lady behind a pub
3. Harry had penis frostbite at William & Kate's wedding2.Harry killed 25 taliban fightersHarry recounts in his memoir his time as a gunner in an Apache attack helicopter while on his second tour in Afghanistan in 2012. It was possible to establish a kill count, the prince said, because he was able to watch gun-cam footage of every mission he flew on.
Harry writes that “in the era of Apaches and laptops” it was possible to establish “with exactness how many enemy combatants I had killed. And it seemed to me essential not to be afraid of that number. So my number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me.”
Later in the book, Harry admits he dehumanized the people he killed. “When I found myself plunged in the heat and confusion of combat I didn’t think of those 25 as people,” he wrote. “They were chess pieces removed from the board. Bad people eliminated before they could kill good people.”
Former members of the British military told the press that revealing this wasn’t smart, as it could increase security threats against Harry and his family. They also questioned how he could be sure of the number, and said the claim paints an inaccurate picture of how soldiers approach missions. Tim Collins, a retired British Army colonel, told Forces News, “That’s not how you behave in the Army; it’s not how we think. He has badly let the side down. We don’t do notches on the rifle butt. We never did.”
1. Prince William physically attacked HarryHarry says William came to his home at Nottingham Cottage to talk about “the whole rolling catastrophe” of their relationship and issues with the press. He showed up “piping hot” and called Meghan “difficult,” “rude,” and “abrasive.” Harry told William that William was just repeating the press narrative about Harry’s wife, and they began shouting insults at each other.
Harry became scared and gave his brother a glass of water in an attempt to calm him down. Then William suddenly attacked him. Per the Guardian:
He writes: “He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”
Harry writes that William urged him to hit back, citing fights they had as children. Harry says he refused to do so.
SOURCE https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/125128967.html
