Prince Harry's explosive memoir, Spare, turns 1.5 years old on July 10, and although the autobiography remains a hit with his and Meghan Markle's fans, the anger the royals feel may never lift.
"I think Prince Harry misplaced his hand by writing it in Spare and being so vindictive to his brother and sister-in-law, who he formerly really loved," royal expert Kerry Parnell told an outlet.
"I think it’s very difficult for the rest of the family to come back from that, which is what we’re seeing," she added. "He had already spoken on Oprah, he had already spoken on Netflix, it was Spare. I think, like, any family, if I wrote that, or you wrote that as a journalist, and printed it, do you expect that they would speak to you again? Probably not, the trust is broken, isn’t it?"
The Duke of Sussex published the tome on January 10, 2023, and like Parnell pointed out, it followed the sensational revelations in the 2021 Oprah special and the December 2022 Netflix, six-part docuseries. Numerous royal analysts thought those ventures would cause the royals to immediately recoil from their self-ousted fiery-haired prince, but what he wrote in the book "was unforgivable."
"It is a deeply sad and unfortunate thing when you sit back and truly think about it," a palace insider shared in February 2023. "He has absolutely and totally destroyed his relationship with his blood family. The senior royals are done with him. Mark my words that the Prince and Princess of Wales will never utter a single word to him ever again. His only ally remains his father, the King, and that is understandable."
They added: "But when His Majesty goes, that's it. Harry will likely never be invited back into the inner royal sanctum. And for what? Money. Victimhood. I suspect Meghan stood over him and the ghostwriter to observe and ensure the attacks on William and Kate were truly vicious and jaw-dropping. Treacherous even. That is the character of that woman"
Upon its release, the tome contained two key passages that have dominated headlines about it ever since. One was Harry's recounting of an alleged physical altercation he had with his brother in 2019. Harry claimed William threw him to the ground in a fit of rage, which caused his back to land on and break a dog's water bowl on the floor. He further stated how his brother and Kate Middleton encouraged him to wear the infamous Nazi uniform to a 2005 costume party, which caused a worldwide scandal and cemented his "bad boy" reputation.
The Duke of Sussex frequently made fun of William's "balding head," which led him to "lose his good looks" in recent years. He also accused his older brother of never liking the Duchess of Sussex and never doing anything to defend him or her when it came to toxic press coverage about them.
Daily Express interviewed Parnell.