In a recent article, a Megan Markle "insider" revealed she had "mild concerns" about her husband's memoir and that the book was a Harry-only project: "is this the way she would have approached things? Possibly not... she would never have got involved in promoting such a personal project."
The couple has not denied the story.
That is extraordinary.
Here’s a wife, THAT wife, concluding her husband had gone too far. She could have easily added, "especially regarding William."
Or noted about the timing, "what will we lose if we wait until after the Queen is gone, you know, just out of deference to her, since she is your grand-mother and is quite elderly."
The book tells the story of a young couple very much in love but nearly undone by a racist press and a hateful family, despite their best-faith efforts. The reader is told Harry and Meghan left England because (1) the racist press constantly taunted her with racial tropes, headlines, and articles; and (2) the Squad as I call them (Charles, Camilla, William, and Kate), did not support the newlyweds. Instead, they "leaked" or "planted nasty stories" that raised the anti-Meghan fever.
“Fed to the wolves,” in her words.
There is a third strand: that the Royal Family had always treated Harry as a never-to-be-king. But this is a more elastic argument. Harry realized it only after meeting Meghan and it's unclear whether that alone would have pushed him out of the Royal Family.
Harry's life is no secret. He is the younger of two boys who came from an unhappy marriage. He lost his mother at age 11, a few years after his parents divorced. His father then married the very woman who had contributed to the divorce. Harry and his brother William experienced it all together. In time, they grew and appeared, by all accounts, close and reasonably happy. When William fell in love with Katherine and through their lengthy courtship, no stress or awkwardness was detected. After the wedding, they became a merry band of three.
In 2016, Harry met and fell for Meghan, an American divorcée who was working as an actress in Canada in a cable TV series. Grey's Anatomy it was not, but she was enjoying success. A self-made millionaire. She was bi-racial (white dad, black mom) but had assiduously avoided labeling herself "black." She said racism was irrelevant to her life before marrying Harry and moving to England: "most people didn't treat me like a Black woman, so that [racism] talk didn't have to happen for me."
But move to England she did, and racial and family pandemonium ensued.
According to the couple, the British press pilloried Meghan, and Windsor Palace refused to help. Instead, they conspired with her tormentors. The reasons offered for that behavior were alternatively “jealousy,” as Meghan was beginning to out-dazzle other stars in the royal galaxy; a desire for rehabilitation at her expense (give the media a new villain to go after); a general family stodginess allergic to shows of emotions and genuine conversations; a broad (race-based?) dislike of Meghan by Palace staff.
So unbearable was the pain that she considered suicide: "if I am just not here anymore, all of this [hatefulness] will stop." At the time of that “very clear” conclusion, she was pregnant with her and Harry’s first child. A Windsor son, as it turns out.
The late Queen Elizabeth was still alive.
Harry, remembering his mother, understandably panicked about his wife's mental and physical plight. He opted out of royal life and moved his young family to California by way of Canada, after the Royals rejected their half-time work proposal.
Last month, he published his memoir, following a three-part documentary just weeks earlier. Both ventures have met with unparalleled success.
Since the announcement of the publishing contract and even following Queen Elizabeth’s death, there was little doubt the memoir would smirch the Royal Family in the same mold as Oprah’s interview. Still, the ferocity of the book was startling. The author drew blood. He managed to be both petty and piercing: that’s quite a feat!
In the universe of would-be Sussex enemies, logic would expect Harry to target, as first line of fire, his father and stepmother who caused irreparable suffering to his beloved mother; then the Queen, who had crafted and overseen such a wretched institution (according to him) for 70 years. Ultimately, it was her decision to reject the half-time royal model. And Diana herself, who had agreed to birth a second child only to provide “a speck of marrow” for the first, if ever needed. Only then would William appear on scene.
But logic is in short supply in Harry’s world. So he declared his brother his “archenemy” and unleashed his uber-vitriolic slings and arrows at him and his family.
Some choices are trivial. For example, Harry’s insistence on using William's nickname. Was it a term of endearment among family members? Well, not anymore. Harry has blown it to bits, making sure it is now commonplace.
Here’s his description of William, with whom he walked behind their mother’s coffin: "I … really looked at him maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in, his familiar scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me, his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own, his famous resemblance to Mummy which was fading with time, with age... I love him deeply."
Please allow a fictional parallel paragraph, as if shared during a PTA meeting: "I looked at my sister Lane, really looked at her maybe for the first time. I took it all in, her yellow laughter, which had terrified me my whole life; the sagging skin on her arms…Her hips had widened and were larger than mine now. Any trace of her days as a ballerina had disappeared. Time and age had not been kind to her... I love her so much."
It is hairy to imagine what he would say about William if he didn’t love him so much.
Harry seems to have a visceral need to belittle his big brother. He went as far as showing the "now-fixed" necklace William allegedly broke during a television interview. And, he attacked his wife: Kate "grimaced" when Meghan asked to use her lipstick.
What explains that singular, sardonic rage?
Of all the people in his universe, why William?
The book supplies no answer.
Harry has said there are 400 pages of material left, more than enough for a second tome. Unlike his first effort, that one would presumably contain only “things” that happened between his father, his brother, and him. So I am willing to admit his attacks on William might have ample justification, but he didn't share them. Simply put, the book doesn’t explain the book.
To be fair, there are spatters. William had the bigger bed (or was it the bigger room) in the Palace and got more breakfast sausages; he told his little brother to stay away from him at Eaton; he argued with him about charities; he called Meghan "difficult"; and of course, he sent his brother down to the floor, to the breakable dog bowl.
None of which justifies the Prince’s fury at his brother.
The closest explanation seems to be William’s relations with the British media. The big allegation is that his office “leaked” that Harry was going to move to South Africa and renounce his title and other similar stories. If true, this would fall squarely into the “annoying” box. Even maddening. But the words “heartbreaking” or “sick” belong in an altogether different category.
This is not to defend the media. There were, in fact, chilling, contemptible words and pictures that would terrify anyone. Racism really can be quite vicious. How utterly devastating to see one’s brand new, precious, perfect baby portrayed as an animal. What kind of despicable being would think that picture funny or harmless? Did none of the Royals understand, even partially, the pain—and the threat—that such a gesture inflicted? A modicum of even faith-less empathy on such occasions would have served as a balm, if not a cure. Harry and Meghan said none was forthcoming. It true, they really are owed an apology by their relatives, starting with his father, since the Queen is gone.
It's worth repeating. Most reasonable people can easily see why the couple might have chosen to leave England: harassing media, some coverage overtly racist, and a family that stayed at arm’s length. Or even the weather. Maybe they just preferred the States or Canada or Botswana.
But that same reasonable frame undoes much of Harry and Meghan’s narrative. For one thing, the millions made. Moreover, there was the small matter of the countless arcane rules to be obeyed, restricting their freedom. They must have experienced each one as a request to dull their "resplendent" selves. Literally walking in William and Kate’s shadow, for example.
Recall Harry and Meghan’s disdain for Frogmore Cottage. Countless people would have been gleeful or at least grateful to live in the world’s most exclusive address, a few yards from the residence of the Queen of England, especially without having worked for or earned any of it. But for the Sussexes, it was one more indignity. The Firm was forcing them unfairly to settle for less, less than William and Kate had, less than they deserved, less than who they were.
Peacocks are not called to be turtles.
In the final analysis, I find Harry’s arguments unconvincing.
Even the overarching issue of safety falls apart when scrutinized: how is California safer than Canada? This may have been news to people around the globe.
More seriously, the couple strictly withheld pictures of their children for three years. Like some Hollywood actors who "show" their little ones by showing a hand or a back. Annoying, but understandable. That was my initial take on Harry and Meghan’s approach. Given their high profile and controversies, I reasoned, they’re just protecting their children. Good for them!
But then Netflix. And there were those little angels, on screen every ten minutes. In their yard, at the beach, with animals, eating, playing, meeting their grandmother Diana.
What happened to the incessant talk of safety and privacy? Did the public really need to be invited into their son’s bathroom?
And a most fundamental question: why not just walk away. Without the rumpus.
"Dear family, you do you and we'll go do us. Firm life isn't for us. Let us agree on Christmases at Balmoral. And the Trooping of the Colour each summer."
How different would the lives of all parties be.
Harry says he needed to tell "his" side of the story, in "his" words. Fair enough. But that is not what he did. He told his story but also those of Charles, Camilla, William, and Kate. Even little Charlotte wasn't spared!
The self-appointed prince of "personal truth" and "personal agency," the loudest defender of "privacy" took it upon himself to publish stomach-churning details, real or imagined, about folks who must have never imagined he would. And never granted him permission to do so. He asserts, for example, William was "tormented by guilt for not speaking up" when Charles rejected their mom. (William would have been 11 or 12 at the time!) Clearly, the reader is not supposed to hear in that declaration a gross invasion of William's privacy.
I believe Harry and Meghan did it for money. The book, the media blitzes, the series, the original interview, all of it was to earn millions, to prove they were profitable investments.
That motivation, however, is more defensible than it might sound.
He came home to a wife threatening suicide. And his family offered no hugs, physical or figurative. Memories of his mom's fate haunted him. So he panicked and decided to leave.
But he could not simply leave as most of us would leave a job or a city. He had to land in a certain way, given his identity and exposure. This was more than some craven desire for a 12-bathroom estate. He had to establish that he could be financially independent away from his family; that he could afford, on his own, the complete freedom Meghan and he so craved. That's laudable.
And there was the crucial matter of 24-hour protection. Freedom and safety are costly when one is an ex-royal. I imagine there is a material difference between 25 and 100 million dollars.
Still, one cannot absolve Harry. Not just because of his acerbity towards his brother, but for a trait that is even more staggering: his hubris.
He looks innocent, almost childish, easy going. But his words betray the contrary. For example, he insists the book is actually a love gift to the House of Windsor. It hurts right now, so they don't believe that but in time they will thank him. Like young children who don't grasp that broccoli is actually good for them. They are seeing in part while he is seeing the whole.
He splashed a newspaper headline showing he was more popular than the Queen--before she died.
To be sure, he is willing to consider reconciliation but only if the Squad apologizes to Meghan and to him. He did not seem to contemplate any circumstances under which he might apologize to them. Not even for spewing and standing by the claim of royal racism for years, only to reject the whole idea in a recent interview: "we never said that; it was the British press." Oprah?
Harry fancies himself “the Fixer.” He is so able that he should raise his brother’s children. “Though William and I have talked about it once or twice and he has made it very clear to me that his kids are not my responsibility, I still feel a responsibility knowing that out of those three children, at least one will end up like me, the spare. And that hurts, that worries me,” he casually put forth from his morally enlightened, fully therapized self, as if he was discussing their birthday presents.
I thought of my family. On what cursed planet would it ever occur to me to utter those words to any sibling about my nieces and nephews? And what family members would have ever dared say such a thing to my husband and me? Even my mom and dad would not have, though they may have been sorely tempted at times.
Who invades such a solemn bond?
Well, someone who learned early he wields inordinate power; that he can 'get away' with things. Who then paints himself as the supreme victim: all his life, he was told he was not first in line to be king.
In essence, Harry has attained a most enviable status within certain media outlets: “I said it. That settles it.” Regarding those lucky few people, doubts are not allowed. Not even questions. What they say is either ignored or accepted and repeated and defended.
For example, when William’s godmother asked a black British woman more than once what country she was “really” from (and touched her hair—good grief!), the Fixer swooped down and ruled “she meant no harm.” No one asked him who had appointed him the Great Czar of Race Affairs.
Imagine how the NY Times, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, The View, Cosmopolitan, People, Yahoo News, how they would have crucified William if he had said that. I suppose Harry does not see his own relationships with those outlets as "sick."
And what if William had told Harry and Meghan, repeatedly, that they were such incapable or uncaring parents that he (William) and Kate should raise Archie and Lilibet, presumably in England, instead of them in Montecito?
That surely would have been “relentless harassment,” no?
“Whaaat,” would have gasped Oprah, “Hold up. William offered to raise YOUR children because HE was worried about how they would turn out if you raised them? Wow.”
Meghan would have fallen to the floor and threatened to disappear in a flood of tears--along with her babies, sending Harry scurrying to the airwaves to explain that the declaration was a betrayal of the highest order that demands accountability.
But he can say it, having been a victim of the Royals and being married to a "black" woman.
Perhaps that very woman already spoke to him, one late night, after the kids had gone down, while the bedside sconces were dimming, "Harry, my love, enough. Please spare us."
I am beginning to like her again.
