Prince Harry's book

[Kjones27]

I only got round to reading it on hols this week.

Most of I knew already, but I was shocked at Harry's description of William. I always thought they were close.

He is very nasty about William in the book.

What were your thoughts?

I didn't say it was "THE truth" @ExpertNutritionalistAndBestSellingAuthor I said it was 'his truth'

Can you not find some compassion for a boy that lost his mother at 12, that fought on the front line for our army as a mixed up young man and has tried to do some good with his charity work? have you done so much better than him as an 'expert nutritionalist and best selling author' that you feel the need to judge him.

It did sell well but two things

1. It sold because he is/was part of the Royal family. He did exactly what every sleazy newspaper he claims to abhor has done and sold gossip about the Royals.
2. The amount of money it made would have kept most people in clover for the rest of their lives. But he has expensive tastes and habits and has probably burned through most of it already.

But he has expensive tastes and habits and has probably burned through most of it already

How do you know this?

Legal fees for various court cases, security costs, private jets, multimillion pound homes… it all adds up.

There have been newspaper articles published in the last couple of days stating (or perhaps speculating) that H&M are running out of money.

I didn’t think it was written in spite, I thought it was written in desperation, an attempt to be heard. I think His Truth is very far from The Truth but he sincerely believes himself.

I’m aware I’m a lone voice but I didn’t think it was at all well written. I found it mannered with too many authorly flourishes. The exception was Harry’s Army experience, by far the best bit of the book where I suspect the writer just let Harry tell his story and didn’t try to tart up what he said.

Harry didn’t do himself any favours producing his book. It shows what an entitled, spoilt brat he is. His constant jibes towards others probably took up a third of the book. The rest I found extremely boring. I’m glad I didn’t buy it.

I found it boring and very woe is me. He is obviously bitter about a lot of things and sees him self as a victim. He also has no idea how self entitled and indulgent he is.

Blimey, what fairytale did you read?

Harry wasn’t the only one who lost his mother. A point a lot of Harry’s supporters seem to forget. I’ve not seen William writing ‘his truth’.

From a ex solicitor’s perspective I’ve usually found the truth to be my truth, your truth and the actual truth somewhere in the middle!

@DillDanding we read for book club also. I can’t say we were all so complimentary!

What I found interesting is that (even though we were born here) me (the Greek Cypriot), the Italian, the Spaniard, & the Scandinavian were not as forgiving of Harry saying ‘his truth’ about his family than the English club members were. And we were perplexed as to why nothing about uncle Andrew?

Look at the way they live! The clothes Meghan wears are mega expensive designer labels. Their holidays are luxe and often on private jets. They fly very frequently and with no thought for cost or the environment. Their household must cost a lot of money to maintain with all the staff and overheads. Their security must run into eye watering amounts . On the other hand, if invested well Harry’s inheritances should yield a lot.
The legal fees they’ve had to pay must have taken a significant chunk. They also have to run all those SUVs they like to keep on hand.

Huh? Did you actually read it? It’s nigh on Impossinle to come away with that take if you did. That’s like writing grass is orange. And pretending everyone else’s hasn’t seen the grass and know it’s green

They also have to run all those SUVs they like to keep on hand

How many have they got?
(Please link a source!)

As for the rest of the post, I'm sure they're doing fine, and won't be living on the breadline much as some posters are desperate for them to be penniless!

@Esse1234 my name is a joke from another thread I was on. I'm not actually a best selling author, or a nutritionalist 😂

Losing a parent as a child, or any age, does not give a, very rich and privileged, adult man the right to have a strop because his Granny and Daddy didn't want to pay for him and his wife to live in America. William lost his mother too. Did you forget that? I can find plenty of compassion for someone who loses a parent. I've lost my own. As I can with people in the armed forces who have actually 'fought on the front line', like my nephew and brother in law both in the RAF. I have zero compassion for a man, who has lived a VERY privileged life (maybe you've forgotten this man is part of a Royal Family, not just some lad from down the road), who is having a tantrum for not getting their own way. I actually find him completely pathetic. And I find his apologisers equally as pathetic too.
Oh the irony of you judging me because of a user name, whilst telling me off for judging a sad stroppy man baby! And yes I have done lots of things much better than Prince Harry. Let's face it, it's not that hard, his charitable endeavours have been selected for him, to promote his image, his whole life. Oh and I've managed to not slag off my whole family to all and sundry in a shitty burn book/documentaries/numerous interviews, accusing them of things that can't be substantiated, whilst knowing they wouldn't be able to properly defend themselves. We've all heard 'his truth'. Multiple times. Multiple versions of it...'his truth' is so inconsistent it's become a bit of a comedy at this point.

She was living that life before they met, she’s hardly penniless and needing him to pay for everything.

Cinderella perhaps?

Hurt people hurt people. People who are happy with their lot don’t behave in this way. He’s clearly feeling very badly done to and wants to lash out at his family to cause the maximum amount of hurt. He comes across as very vindictive and vengeful.

Couldn’t agree more with every word you’ve said. You’ve summed up the situation brilliantly. All that bollocks about him going to war. What he actually did was put other troops in danger by wanting to play the soldier. They were glad when he got hauled back home.

I stopped reading it because he was so mean about people. I don’t think he was lying about anything, it’s his version of events. It’s only on mumsnet that adult siblings never disagree about their interpretation of events.

He was just mean. About random people like people who used to work at his school.

I felt like most of the stuff between him and William was really normal typical sibling relationship dynamics and as he's got no other point of context he’s assumed it’s all to do with the heir/spare situation.

Loads of people fall out with their siblings and have a bit of rivalry etc, what tea not recognising is that it’s really normal.

The bits that irritated me was him whinging about his accomodation etc when it was all provided for him and unlike your average person he doesn’t to worry about how to pay his rent, and although there was plenty of ‘woe is me’ flights around the globe to Africa/visit Megan were always available and he seemed to have no concept of his privilege.

A part I’m sure couldn’t possibly have been true was his depiction of his first solo press interview, saying he had no briefing and nobody from the palace Comms team was with him to rebuff certain questions - I work in PR and this doesn’t ring true.

Unlike most people on mumsnet their lives are not searchable on Google, some of the “his truth” would have took a 10 minute fact checking. There was no misinterpretation of the Queen mother death that painted his family as uncaring particularly Charles, it just never happened as he described

What he actually did was put other troops in danger by wanting to play the soldier

What a mean thing to say. I presume you think exactly the same about PPhilip, Andrew and William who all served in the Forces.

I thought some of it was quite witty. But overall it came off as self-pitying. He kept returning to the same old bugbears - that he was seen as less important than William in the RF and so given less attention & a smaller bedroom, and also that he hated the attention that came with being a royal. the two things felt slightly mutually-contradictory to me but we all have conflicting emotions sometimes I guess.

the one part I really didn't lie, was where he made fun of the appearance of the matron at his boarding school because she had a physical disability and was an older woman. I felt that was quite mean-spirited and should have been edited out.

I don't think she was living in a mega mansion (with all the maintenance costs that entails) with two children to support and a need for 24/7 security before she was married, was she?

I find it very difficult to believe that Harry was ever in any real danger during his military service. This is a bloke who got royal close protection back in the day (although it wasn't that good if he could escape and smoke pot/caper with stable girls at the back of some pub somewhere....that's another story then...) and I've read somewhere that he had a team of Gurkhas detailed to his protection whilst he was in Afghanistan. Can you imagine being his commanding officer reporting back that he was coming back home minus limbs or in a body bag, because I can't. Ditto Andrew.