Why are You Trashing Prince Harry and His Book When You Haven’t Read it?

You’re allowing the media to manipulate you.

Before Prince Harry’s book, “Spare” was even RELEASED, the standard comment that I read by Medium writers was: “I haven’t read it and I have no intention of doing so. Here is my opinion of the book.” They based their opinion on leaked excerpts by journalists who had gotten advanced copies.

They then spared no words in trashing Harry as a privileged, spoiled brat, who is selling out his family for money. They tore him apart for leaving his royal duties, for marrying a woman they think is as spoiled and bratty as they perceive him to be; they accuse him of using his trauma over his mother’s death as an excuse for a lifetime of what they perceive as bad behavior.

They vilify Charles for his coldness towards his sons, especially Harry.

There’s one MAJOR problem with those opinions. By these writers' own admissions, they are not based on having READ THE BOOK. The opinions are based on one sensational leaked sentence or paragraph they have been spoon-fed by the media; a piece the media has chosen to leak because sensationalism sells newspapers and magazines.

Instead of you reading the book, the media was counting on you to get worked up over the parts they cherry-picked, took out of context, and sensationalized.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion of anyone, including Prince Harry, based on what you personally know of, or have read about them. But when did it become acceptable to review a book and base an opinion on the subject of that book when YOU HAVEN’T READ IT?

Spare was released on January 10th, and I have read it, cover to cover. I have re-read many sections to ensure I had my facts straight before writing this article.

So let’s look at how the media has manipulated your opinions:

• Harry’s account of Charles breaking the news to him about Diana’s death. The excerpt that was quoted most often was that after telling Harry the news, Charles didn’t hug him and left the room, leaving you with the impression that Harry thought his father was a cold fish with no feelings.

The full story:

In the CBS interview conducted by journalist Tom Bradby, Harry said that he could not imagine being a father having to deliver that news to his child. He said that he could not imagine the torture his father went through, waiting hours before telling his sons. (For his own unexplained reasons, Charles delivered the news separately to each boy. Harry never asked him why.) Charles sat down on the bed, put his hand on Harry’s knee, and gave him the news as gently as it was possible to give a child such horrific news. This is Harry’s account taken directly from the book:

“He sat down on the edge of the bed. He put a hand on my knee. Darling boy, Mummy’s been in a car crash.

I remember thinking: Crash….OK. But she’s all right? Yes?

I vividly remember that thought flashing through my mind. And I remember waiting for Pa to confirm that indeed Mummy was all right. And I remember him not doing that.

There was a shift internally. I began silently pleading with Pa, or God or both: No, no, no.

Pa looked down into the folds of the old quilts and blankets and sheets. There were complications. Mummy was quite badly injured and taken to hospital, darling boy.

He always called me “darling boy”, but he was saying it quite a lot now. His voice was soft. He was in shock, it seemed.

Oh, Hospital?

Yes. With a head injury.

Did he mention paparazzi? Did he say she’d been chased? I don’t think so. I can’t swear to it, but probably not. The paps were such a problem for Mummy, for everyone, it didn’t need to be said.

I thought again: Injured….but she’s OK. She’s been taken to hospital, they’ll fix her head, and we’ll go see her. Today. Tonight at the latest.

They tried, darling boy. I’m afraid she didn’t make it.

These phrases remain in my mind like darts in a board. He did say it that way, I know that much for sure. She didn’t make it. And then everything seemed to come to a stop.

That’s not right. Not seemed. Nothing at all seemed. Everything distinctly, certainly, irrevocably, came to a stop.

None of what I said to him then remains in my memory. It’s possible that I didn’t say anything. What I do remember with startling clarity is that I didn’t cry. Not one tear.

Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances, how could he be expected to show them in such a crisis? But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said: It’s going to be OK.

That was quite a lot for him. Fatherly, hopeful, kind. And so very untrue.

He stood and left. I don’t recall how I knew that he’d already been in the other room, that he’d already told Willy, but I knew.”

And so there you have it. The whole experience from Harry. Not sensational bits and pieces from a media that wanted to manipulate you into thinking of Charles as an unfeeling robot.

Because it was so widely reported, I will cite one more example of how the media leaks shaped your opinion of Harry and William.

The Fight:

• There is no doubt the relationship between the brothers is strained to the breaking point. However, I couldn’t help noticing one glaring omission from the widely leaked media account of the physical fight between Harry and William at Nottingham Cottage. Every account I read ended with Harry screaming at William, “Get Out.” We’re left to assume that William left and they barely spoke to each other after that incident.

The full story according to Harry:

According to the account in the book, William, believing all the Palace reports that Meghan was rude and difficult, came to the cottage, furious, to ask Harry to reign in his wife and make her stop her offensive behavior. Their arguing about it went from the living room to the kitchen, where, according to Harry, William went after him and knocked him down onto the dog’s dish, which shattered. The sharp pieces left him scratched and bloodied. Harry did yell at his brother to “Get out.”

What the media excerpts did not tell was that William did NOT leave the cottage. He left the kitchen and went into the living room. He returned to the kitchen a while later and although he said he did not “attack” Harry, as Harry claimed, he did apologize. He asked that Harry not tell Meghan about the incident. Harry did not want to keep anything from his wife, but he did promise William he would not tell Meghan. It was then that William left the cottage.

Leaking only the first part of the story left the reader with the impression that the brothers never spoke again after Harry screamed at William to “Get out.”

Harry did break his promise to his brother not to tell Meghan because she saw and asked about the scratches on his back when he came out of the shower.

There are countless examples like these two I have cited, that the media “leaked” to mold your opinion of Harry, William, Charles, and the other Royals.

And you fell for it. You wrote article after article trashing everyone from Harry to Charles to Camilla to Megan et al, based on selected excerpts the media fed to you, rather than reading the book and forming your own opinion.

I’m not going to give you my opinion of Harry, and I don’t care what your opinion is. What I DO care about is if your opinion is based on the media-selected, out-of-context excerpts accounts of a book you haven’t read.

You are entitled to your opinions of Harry and his book, and I would like to read them — AFTER YOU READ THE BOOK.

©Joan Gershman 2023

Want unlimited access to all my stories — Click this link:

I get a small portion of your membership fee at no extra cost to you.