Leaked Harry memoir Book triggers condemnation

GBNEWS24DESK//

Prince Harry yesterday faced a backlash in the UK and beyond over his memoir “Spare”, with criticism from the media, commentators, army veterans and even the Taliban, while Buckingham Palace kept silent on the widely leaked contents.

Days before the official publication on Tuesday, disclosures from the book dominated headlines and airwaves after a Spanish-language version of the memoir mistakenly went on sale in Spain.

Revelations such as how heir to the throne Prince William allegedly pushed Harry to the ground in a 2019 row to how he lost his virginity, took drugs, and killed 25 people in Afghanistan prompted both condemnation and derision.

Writer AN Wilson called the ghostwritten tome — the biggest royal book since Harry’s mother Princess Diana collaborated with Andrew Morton for “Diana: Her True Story” in 1992 — “calculated and despicable” and a work of “malice”.

The book is the latest hostile blast from Harry and his American wife Meghan after they quit royal duties and moved to California in 2020. The Sun tabloid said that while people sympathised with Harry, 38, over the trauma of losing his mother as a child, “neither can justify the destructive, vengeful path he has chosen, throwing his own family under a bus for millions of dollars”.

Harry’s claim to have killed 25 people in Afghanistan and likening his actions to removing “chess pieces” from a board, has been seen as boastful and inappropriate.

Senior Taliban official Anas Haqqani tweeted: “Mr Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; They had families who were waiting for their return.”