Just finished 'Spare'...

[HerReputationMadeItDifficultToProceed]

… and I encourage anyone who’s even vaguely interested in this story to give it a read. Especially if what’s been leaked has made you at all angry, because I think in context everything makes a lot of sense.

I wasn’t a Harry and Meghan hater before reading this, but I wasn’t a fan girl either. Like many Brits, I find a lot of Americans- especially West Coast Americans- quite irritating and Meghan firmly falls into that camp for me. I’m sure she’s nice enough, but she’s very American and very perky and much like Wednesday Addams, I don’t do perky. However, I suspect that her intentions and generally good and that like most of us she’s got good and bad qualities. She’s clearly ambitious and I think that she probably initially dated Harry based on that ambition and on getting a platform, although I think that she genuinely loves him now.

The ghost writer has done a great job at capturing Harry’s personality I think; he comes across as introspective and thoughtful but funny and bright.

I think that Harry has a good soul; I think that he’s kind and has had a hard time of it growing up. I also think he’s a bit clueless and naive and has been in a bubble, but I think he acknowledges that and wants to understand and change. Undoubtedly losing his mother at the age he was had more of an outward impact on him than it had on William. He’s also been a victim of his dad’s wishywashy parenting. It sounds like- and looks like to me from my vantage point as a normal citizen who knows bugger all except what I’ve seen in the media- that Charles has been there for his kids to an extent, but not in a hands on or especially useful way. It also seems clear that Charles has always put Camilla first. From almost the moment Diana died it seems that he wanted, above everything else, to rehabilitate Camilla’s image so that they could marry. I think that he put that above being a father and the way Harry writes about their relationship makes that clear too.

I also think that it’s suited the palace to portray Harry as dimwitted and feckless to show William in a better light and that Harry has every right to be angry about that and not want to play that game anymore (and to call it out now). Especially as it’s obvious that the palace haven’t kept up their side of the bargain and protected Harry from the media in return.

I also think that the media have treated H and M poorly and it’s clearly the case that the palace has used them and news stories about them to divert from other newsworthy problems… certainly Prince Andrew, perhaps William’s affair/s. Is Harry overly jumpy about the media and the paparazzi in particular? Yes, of course. Who wouldn’t be with his background. But they’ve also obviously been hounded and harassed.

I do think that Harry is on a journey that he isn’t at the end of yet, but I think that he realises that too. I think that he was always going to leave the royal family and that Meghan didn’t cause what’s happened, she was just the catalyst for it. I think that he’s been scapegoated and an afterthought within his nuclear family and I don’t blame him for being angry. I think that he means well and is essentially good. And I don’t think that anyone who’s read the whole book would be able to disagree.

More than anything I think it’s clear that the British Royal Family is no longer fit for purpose; the way they live, bring up their children, pay their members for work and demand unrealistic levels of protocol and formality is no longer working in the 21st century. These people need purpose and lives beyond the crown and those on the edges of the heir shouldn’t have to live their lives in service of the their. Realistically H and M could have worked as royals and had private interests, the RF chose not to bend to help them live fulfilling lives because of its own, outdated reasons.

Off his face? Why on earth would you say that?
He was eloquent and amusing and said what he wanted to say, well.

mixing business and family rarely works.
Farmers have been doing it for centuries.

No. God alive,

It is a thing that Stephen Colbert does, a bit like Graham Norton or Jonathon Ross used to do. Pour guests a drink.

And having watched the whole interview, I can tell you that Colbert was drinking his twice as quick as Harry, and Harry just had the odd sip here and there.
So you are totally wrong.

I said it because that’s what it looked like to me. Obviously your perception and mine differ. I’ve seen interviews where he has been eloquent, amusing and likeable, this wasn’t one of them.

Of course he's going to be somewhat tense when talking about something he feels so negatively about and expected to justify himself. You may agree or disagree with what he's saying but his number 1 complaint - that members of his family were complicit in generating negative press about him and Meghan - is not wildly out of the realms of reality, as it is something that's happened in the royal family before. It's either true or not but it's not a deranged thought.

Harry just had the odd sip here and there.

He had two large doubles.

With varying degrees of success, and how would farmers fare subject to public scrutiny?

You see, that's the kind of thing that would go some way towards helping me understand his position - depending of course on the answer he gave.

There is no such explanation or justification in the book.

And there is no room for denail. They clearly, strongly and idisputably implied that the RF is racist. When Oprah checked her understanding - so serious was the allegation that she had to - Meghan said " — if that’s the assumption you’re making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one"

A bit of both, perhaps? We all know the avoidance stagies and a certain amount of gaslighting that goes on in both workplaces and families when one person wants to change an ingrained way of doing things and more senior managers are resistant. However, he is rather obsessed with interpreting everything as 'unconscious bias' and has admitted himself that he was addicted to reading media reports of himself and his wife, so it's not totally ridiculous for them to suggest that he's not thinking clearly

I remember being horrified at Diana's story, death & the boys walking with the coffin thing. This book tells what happened next. The RF are terrible parents, like ducks they pass their kids over to hens to raise cos they are so useless. No wonder the ducklings get very hurt. To be frank, I don't believe 9/10s of what the papers say & the book validates my pov. He is adorable, she is adorable & I wish them lots of happiness. There is nothing written in the book that violates the families privacy; he is entitled to say his brother physically attacked him. He explains his father's kindness and gentleness in spades. I thought much more highly of the latter PofW than before. He is much nicer about Charles and camilla than Charles was about liz & Phil in his book.

What? I did not see the glasses change at all in the interview. I saw the glasses come out but not him necking it or 'off his face'. I saw that Colbert was drinking it more quickly than Harry, was he 'off his face' too?

The clinked glasses once, and I saw Harry sip his maybe 2 or possibly 3 times.

And then when Harry joined Meghan on the sofa with OW he vehemently said he would never say who it was who said it. And OW was at pains to say that Mand H made it clear it was not PP or QE that said it.
It was absolutely a big deal in that interview and the accusation of racism was clear.

He's so "adorable" he's prepared to publicly rip to shreds and humiliate a disabled matron at his school without even a hint of remorse at what he did to her as a child - and while saying she had greasy hair and didn't make him horny?

Delightful.

It's so strange how we all perceive things differently. I watched the Colbert interview and thought Harry came across really well - less rehearsed, less nervous, less defensive, less prickly. His interaction with the audience seemed spontaneous and he was charismatic.
I think unconscious bias and racism are really not that far removed from each other to be honest. I suspect the former was used to soften the allegation, especially as he had no intention of naming the one who commented on potential skin colour. Did I think they were calling them out in the OW interview? I think they were pointing out entrenched old-fashioned mindsets - the kind of bias that did lead to headlines like (almost) Straight Outta Compton.

Yes with varying degrees of success but the family members who want out usually find a profession or employment to go to. They don't expect the perks of the family business without doing any work for it. And if you think there is no public scrutiny then you've never been part of the rural community. I come from a large farming family and while we have had our ups and downs I know could phone any of them and ask for help and advice.

I didn’t watch the interview but read some commentary that said Harry was drinking tequilas before and during the show.

If you read between the lines when harry describes his family's reaction to him meeting/wanting to marry megan it sounds very much like none of them liked her very much but didn't dare voice this to Harry because he is a spoilt manchild who throws tantrums when he doesn't get his own way. I think everything he took as slights towards Megan was simply them not wanting to be to involved with her because they didn't like or trust her! I mean he himself describes the queen as saying " well I can't really say no can i" when he asked her for permission to marry megan, that really doesn't sound like the reaction of a grandmother who is happy to see her son get married! Look what happened when people did start saying what they really thought of megan, he's thrown tantrum after tantrum and is behaving like a vindictive child! This is his revenge pure and simple!

• grandson

Some do - there are always family members who want perks from family business regardless of the sector, and H has never said he wouldn’t work for it. W & K don’t seem to do much work but that may be due to Charles.

Public scrutiny as on the global stage and in the media daily, I’m not taking about being discussed in the village pub! 🤣

Ahhh... so there we have it. You didn't watch it. You ought to.

1. How do you know he was drinking tequilas before the show, is there a link to that?
2. You are incorrect about the necking it during the show. It can be seen in footage right at the end of the show, that he still has some of his glass left. Stephen Colbert's looks empty. Harry took 2 or 3 sips, that was it.

This is when I find these threads really irritating, it is just criticising him for the sake of it and making stuff up. Why I'm defending him, I don't know, because those that want to believe he was rolling round drunk and off his face, will believe it whatever anyone who has actually watched the whole thing, says! Because that's how they want it to be.

In which case you might want to watch it again. The glasses were refilled halfway through and, although he might have been sober to start with, it looked as if something - not necessarily alcohol - had been imbibed before he came on.

@HerReputationMadeItDifficultToProceed this is how I felt about it too. I haven't got time for the royals particularly anyway. I'd be happy if the monarchy was abolished. However I read it so I could make up my own mind and not be fed the tabloid shit. He comes across as a genuine bloke whose trying to do his best and I feel as though he's been badly treated by the press for having the temerity to speak out.

Dh and I were discussing this earlier and wondering if the leak was deliberate to promote sales. Spain is perhaps the most the obvious country. Plenty of links to the U.K. with all those Brits living abroad, a commonly known language and with a RF themselves.

I think it's so funny when people read an autobiography or watch a Netflix documentary made by someone and decide that is a true picture of them and that therefore opinions should change. We are getting a full PR assault from H&M, never mind the briefing from the palace or the spin the media are putting on what's in the book. Harry comes across as deeply deluded and troubled in the interviews he's giving to promote the book, where there isn't a kind ghost writer to turn up the sentimentality. This line about needing to protect his nephews and niece FROM THEIR OWN PARENTS who he seems to think don't have their best interests at heart says so much about him. Everything that's pre-filmed or written can be taken with a massive pinch of salt because it was multiple people's jobs to make him look sane and normal. Don't be influenced by that but by what he says. (Also in my view the main advantage of going to Eton is an easy and very superficial charm which Harry definitely has. Look past that, though, and what he's saying is bananas.)

A bit like a politician with Tom Bradby I thought.
His neck started to go red under the shirt colour at one point.