Prince Harry Memoir Releases: Bombshells against royal family revealed

Prince Harry revealed that despite receiving an official clothing allowance from his father, the King, he would shop for his “everyday casual clothes” in TK Maxx.

Prince Harry said that he was “particularly fond” of the discount store’s annual sale, where he could buy designer items at cheaper prices.

“Each year I received from Pa an official clothing allowance, but that was strictly for formal wear. Suits and ties, ceremonial outfits. For my everyday casual clothes I’d go to TK Maxx, the discount store. I was particularly fond of their once-a-year sale, when they’d be flush with items from Gap or J Crew, items that had just gone out of season or were slightly damaged.”

Prince Harry recalled the moment Meghan Markle met the royal family for the first time when she mistook Prince Andrew as Queen Elizabeth II’s personal assistant. In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry writes that his then future wife was underprepared during her first meeting with his grandmother in 2016.

Prince Harry wrote about the vicious media attacks carried out against his wife, and how a claim by the British paper sensationally accused Markle of putting Charlotte’s life at risk due to having the flower girls wear crowns containing lily of the valley to the couple’s 2018 wedding.

Amid numerous claims made by Prince Harry against the royal family ahead of the release of his memoir ‘Spare’, British prime minister Rishi Sunak defended the royal family saying that he is proud of them. In the book, parts of which were leaked, ahead of its official release, Prince Harry addressed his relationship with the royal family and the rifts within the family.

King Charles will carry out a public engagement two days after the release of the Prince Harry‘s bombshell book. King Charles will travel to Aberdeenshire on Thursday to visit the Aboyne and Mid Deeside Community Shed for a tour of the new facilities and to meet with local hardship support groups.

It will be his first public engagement since the release of Harry’s controversial Memoir Spare which went on sale on Tuesday.

One day before its release, Spare ranked number one on Barnes and Nobles’ Top 100 Book Bestsellers list. The memoir was originally listed on B&N’s website at $36.00, but has since been reduced to $25.20. Spare also holds the number one spot on both Amazon US and Amazon UK’s best sellers list, where it is being sold for $22.42 and £14.00, respectively.

Prince Harry said that Tyler Perry offered him his Los Angeles house to stay in because his own mother had “loved” Diana, Princess of Wales. Harry said that the US actor and comedian had made the “generous” offer as he and Meghan sought to travel to America from Canada amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

Tyler Perry, who is known for multiple US television shows, revealed that after Diana’s famous visit to Harlem, New York in 1989, she could “do no wrong” in the eyes of his own mother.

Prince Harry revealed how he had a “painfully awkward” first kiss with Cressida Bonus in his memoir Spare. The Duke of Sussex said his “aim was off” as he tried to kiss the actress after a date.

“I could take out a cactus from three miles away with a Hellfire missile but I couldn’t quite find her lips," Prince Harry said. 

Prince Harry wrote that Prince William was “glum” after not being allowed to wear what he wanted on his wedding day.

“As the Heir, he must wear the Number One Ceremonial, she decreed. William was glum at having so little say in what he wore to get married, at having his autonomy taken on him from such an occasion,” the memoir said.

Prince Harry clarified his relationship with his stepmother, Queen Consort Camilla Parker-Bowles, after he previously described her as “the villain” and claimed she launched a “campaign” to marry his father, King Charles.

Prince Harry said that he has a “huge amount of compassion” for Camilla, “being the third person in my parents’ marriage”.

“And she had a reputation, or an image, to rehabilitate. Whatever conversations happened, whatever deals or trading was made right at the beginning, she was led to believe that that would be the best way of doing it,” Prince Harry said.

Prince Harry talked about how Queen Elizabeth reacted when he and his wife Meghan Markle stepped down from royal duties. 

“No. My grandmother and I had a very good relationship. It was never a surprise to anybody, least of all her. She knew what was going on. She knew how hard it was. She never said to me that she was angry. I think she was sad that it got to that point," Prince Harry says. 

Prince Harry said the divide between him and his family “couldn’t be greater”. Asked about whether he thinks his book will bring his father and brother back to him or whether it will widen the divide, Prince Harry told Good Morning America: “I thought about it long and hard, and as far as I see it the divide couldn’t be greater before this book.”

“I’m not angry any more. There are things that will still anger me, but I’m not angry any more, because I am exactly where I am supposed to be,” he said.

Prince Harry says that he was naive going into the marriage with Meghan and repeated his accusations that the British media is racist toward his wife.

“I had no idea the British press was so bigoted. Hell, I was probably bigoted,” he says.

Asked how he was bigoted, Harry says: “I don’t know” but “I didn’t see what I now see.”

Prince Harry said that he is doing the interviews and using the language his family understands to “speak my truth”. He says unlike his family, which he says uses unnamed sources with newspapers that have radicalised readers against Harry and Meghan, he will use his own words and they will come from his mouth.

The alleged altercation took place at Prince Harry’s then home in Nottingham Cottage, when Prince William is said to have called Meghan Markle “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”.

Prince Harry told him he was parroting the press narrative about his wife.

Prince Harry says that he told his therapist first and his wife later after she noticed the scrapes and bruises on his back. “She was terribly sad,” he said.

Prince Harry writes, “(William) called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”

Leaked before the official release, Spare covers a wide range of subjects from Prince Harry's fractious relationship with brother Prince William to the struggles after his mother Diana’s death in 1997. His sex life, drug use and time served in the army are also covered in a memoir that appears to go into uncomfortable levels of detail.

The palace has so far declined to comment about any of the contents of the book, copies of which went on sale early in Spain.

Prince Harry accused Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton of “stereotyping” Meghan Markle as a “divorced biracial American actress”. In an interview ahead of the release of his memoir ‘Spare’, Prince Harry claimed that Prince William and his wife never got on with Meghan Markle “from the get-go”. Read more

Prince Harry was quizzed on why his and the Duchess of Sussex‘s claim about an unnamed royal expressing concerns about how dark their unborn son’s skin would be did not appear in their Netflix documentary or his book.

Anderson Cooper asked, “That wasn’t brought up in Netflix or in the book. Why?”

Prince Harry replied, “The way the British press reacted to that was fairly typical. There was like a hunt for the royal racist. Neither of us believe that that comment or that experience or that opinion was based on racism."

Crowds gathered at WH Smith in London’s Victoria station to be among the first to buy the Duke of Sussex’s memoir, Spare, after it hit the shelves at midnight on Tuesday, 10 January.

Prince Harry recalls his relationship with his late great aunt, Princess Margaret, in his new memoir Spare. Princess Margeret, Queen Elizabeth II’s sister died in 2002.

Recalling his early memories of “Aunt Margo”, Prince Harry explains that he felt “nothing for her, except a bit of pity and a lot of jumpiness”.

“She could kill a houseplant with one scowl,” Prince Harry wrote.

Prince Harry writes about the details of the royal life as not seen by common people. Read here