Prince Harry’s ghostwriter is fighting back against critics!
The Duke of Sussex’s memoir Spare dropped earlier this week, bringing with it a bevy of bombshells, including details about his rocky relationship with Prince William and King Charles III, the death of Princess Diana, and more. But as readers dove into the book this week, many have spotted several factual errors within the pages — and weren’t afraid to call out Harry for it!
Buzzfeed reporter Ellie Hall wrote on Twitter that she “stumbled across another little inaccuracy” in Spare on Wednesday. She shared an excerpt in which the Archewell founder suggests that Dickie Arbiter, “the Queen’s ex-press secretary,” said Harry and Meghan Markle should “expect no mercy” after stepping away from their royal duties in 2020. However, he seems to have misattributed the threatening quote. While Arbiter did speak with The Sun about the exit, it was actually Trevor Phillips who said to The Times that “Harry and Meghan will join the rest of us in the trenches” and “expect no mercy.”
Related: Royal Tailor Breaks Silence On Meghan & Catherine’s Bridesmaid Dress Feud!
That wasn’t the only error! Elsewhere in the memoir, Harry recalls being at the boarding school Eton when he found out that the Queen Mother — Queen Elizabeth II’s mom — passed away in 2002, writing:
“At Eton, while studying, I took a call. I wish I could remember whose voice was at the other end; a courtier’s, I believe. I recall that it was just before Easter, the weather was bright and warm, light slanting through my window, filled with vivid colours. Your Royal Highness, the Queen Mother has died.”
But it turns out that recollection was inaccurate! Several reports and pictures came out showing Harry, William, and Charles were in Klosters, Switzerland, on a ski trip when his great-grandmother died.
Other mistakes? The prince wrote about receiving an Xbox from Diana, but the game console wasn’t released when she died in 1997. Harry was also called out by TK Maxx – the UK’s version of TJ Maxx — for claiming he bought his clothes during its “once-a-year sale,” something they say doesn’t exist.
Oof! It’s wild that so many errors were overlooked in the publishing process, especially since they knew how many eyes would be on this piece! And of course, the book’s inaccuracies only added fuel to the fire for the critics of Meghan and Harry, as they’ve been looking to discredit his story from the start.
However, it looks like the Better Up CIO’s ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer is pushing back against the claims! Taking to Twitter on Wednesday, the author shared a quote from Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir that read:
“The line between memory and fact is blurry, between interpretation and fact. These are inadvertent mistakes of those kinds out the wazoo.”
He then tweeted another passage from Karr that said:
“Neurologist Jonathan Mink, MD, explained to me that such intense memoirs … we often record the emotion alone, all detail blurred into unreadable smear.”
He didn’t stop there! J.R. also shared two quotes from Spare where Harry talks about his memory of events:
“Landscape, geography, architecture, that’s how my memory rolls. Dates? Sorry, I’ll need to look them up. Dialogue? I’ll try my best, but make no verbatim claims, especially when it comes to the 90s.”
We mean, fair enough! The ’90s was a long time ago! A second quote from Harry noted:
“Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory, it does what it does, gathers and curates as it sees fit, and there’s just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts. Things like chronology and cause-and-effect are often just fables we tell ourselves about the past.”
As for those who nitpicked about the Xbox? The novelist didn’t hesitate to shut it down, dropping another passage from the book where Harry noted he wasn’t sure if it was true:
“It was an Xbox. I was pleased. I love video games. That’s the story, anyway. It appeared in many accounts of my life, as gospel, and I have no idea if it’s true. Pa said Mummy hurt her head, but perhaps I was the one with brain damage? As a defense mechanism, most likely, my memory was no longer recording things quite as it once did.”
Harry has yet to speak on the criticism — but we can imagine he has some thoughts about it! What do you think about the matter, Perezcious readers? Do you feel these inaccuracies ruin the book for you? Sound OFF in the comments below.
[Image via Netflix/YouTube, Nicky Nelson/WENN]
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