Prince Harry’s Memoir Reportedly Updated to Include Details on the Queen’s Funeral
The book release has been pushed back multiple times.
It seems as though Prince Harry’s forthcoming memoir has a new ending—according to Lord Jeffrey Archer, the tell-all will now end with the Queen’s funeral after Harry wrote a new chapter for the tome surrounding his grandmother’s death and the events leading up to her funeral.
Archer—a friend of the late Princess Diana’s—is apparently deeply concerned that the book will make the relationship between Harry, wife Meghan Markle, and the rest of the royal family even worse, saying, according to The Daily Mail, “I’m very sad. I fear for the book. I know they’re writing the chapter on the funeral, so I suppose that’s what the book will end on.”
Originally scheduled for a fall 2022 release, The Mail on Sunday revealed last month that “Harry had launched an eleventh-hour bid to alter it amid fears that it would be seen as insensitive after the Queen’s death. He was said to be ‘desperate’ to make significant changes after witnessing the public outpouring of support for the royal family.” To this, Archer says Harry’s publisher, Penguin Random House, will be determined to get its money’s worth: “They paid him a lot of money—something like 20 million pounds,” Archer says. “You want to calm it down if you’re paid 20 million pounds?”
Neither Penguin Random House nor Harry are commenting on the book at the moment, per The Daily Mail.
According to The Mirror, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are “planning a year of reconciliation to thaw the ice with the royal family”—but not until after the book is out and their Netflix series drops, according to the outlet. Both are due at the end of 2022 and potentially into early 2023.
The Sussexes had hoped to fully make amends with the Queen in 2023 but were never able to do so. (No chance that you missed this, but Her late Majesty passed away peacefully at Balmoral Castle at age 96 last month.) While Harry’s book, Meghan’s Spotify podcast Archetypes, and their joint Netflix docuseries were attempts to create their own narrative—“This is about where they’ve come from, what they’ve been through, and where they are. I think it will explain a lot about the decisions they’ve had to make and how they’ve ended up here,” an insider told The Telegraph, per The Mirror—Harry has been seeking to pump the brakes on the projects to attempt at mending fences with his family.
“Harry has thrown a spanner in the works,” a source told Mail Online, per The Mirror. “He is keen for refinements in the light of the Queen’s death, her funeral, and his father Charles taking the throne. There may be things in the book which might not look so good if they come out so soon after these events. He wants sections changed now. It’s not a total rewrite by any means. He desperately wants to make changes. But it might be too late.”
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Apparently, Penguin Random House demanded a rewrite after the first draft was deemed “too touchy-feely”—and the couple’s attempt to reconcile with the royal family will likely make it even more so.
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.