Prince Harry Left Enough for a Second ‘Spare’ on the Cutting Room Floor Because He Was Afraid That Prince William and King Charles Would Never Forgive Him

King Charles, Prince William, Prince Harry

(Image credit: Getty)

published 24 October 2023

While this is hard to imagine (considering how juicy the book is), Prince Harry himself said that, when writing his memoir, Spare, with ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer, there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. Harry once said he had enough material for a second memoir, and admitted he purposefully left certain details out of the tell-all, specifically anecdotes about his older brother, Prince William, and his father, King Charles, “as he feared they would never forgive him if he revealed them,” The Mirror reports.

“It could have been two books, put it that way,” Harry told The Telegraph. “And the hard bit was taking things out. There are some things that have happened, especially between me and my brother, and to some extent between me and my father, that I just don’t want the world to know. Because I don’t think they would ever forgive me.”

Harry also said he had 50 Zoom calls with Moehringer, and often struggled about what to keep and what to leave out. (Just in case you’re the two people in the world who haven’t read Spare, Harry reveals plenty, thank you very much.)

“The story is a slightly tragic one as it has damaged this idea of a family monarchy,” royal author Dr. Ed Owens said on an episode of the “Pod Save the King” podcast. “The idea that this is a united group who embody, if you like, the best of British family life. Originally, King Charles III’s reign was going to be based around him being supported by his two trusty lieutenants—William and Harry. But when that went so disastrously wrong in 2020 because of Harry and Meghan’s decision to leave Britain, it really put paid to that vision of the family monarchy.”

After Spare and projects like it (think the Harry & Meghan docuseries on Netflix), Owens said it was time to “do away with this family narrative once and for all,” he said. “We don’t need to have this big royal family presenting themselves as moral exemplars. King Charles is uniquely placed because he knows firsthand that the ideal of the family rarely matches the reality of the family monarchy.”

And just when we thought the book’s 416 pages “spared” nothing…

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.

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