Thread by @thetimes

"In the prince’s telling, the royal family is like a cult from which he only narrowly escaped."

Read @j_amesmarriott's review of #SparebyPrinceHarry 👇 thetimes.co.uk/article/prince…

If Spare has a theme, it is how much Harry loathes the press. The press, he believes, killed his mother. In the best bit of writing in the book, he describes how the illumination of camera flashbulbs trapped the paparazzi’s own reflections in their photographs of the crumpled car

There is, frankly, not enough space here to detail how much Harry hates the press. They are “grotesque”. Journalists are “radicalised” like Taliban fighters by their editors who are like “mullahs”

Harry reads what’s written about him and knows individual journalists by name. He has nicknames for the ones he hates most. The sound of a camera is like a “cocked gun” or somebody flicking open the blade of a knife

At every turn, he says, the press destroy his life. They make him look like an idiot when they publish pictures of him playing naked pool
thetimes.co.uk/article/prince…

They make him look like a racist when they publish pictures of him dressed as a Nazi (but who was it, you want to say, that was dressing up as a Nazi in the first place?). They leak his location in Afghanistan forcing him out of the army. But most of all, they killed his mum

Although Harry sees himself as his mother’s son, there is more of Charles in him than he might like to acknowledge — especially the petulant, petty princeling in Charles who snaps when he’s provided with the wrong inkwell and moans about the “utter hell” of being Prince of Wales

Spare is loaded with trivial complaints and absurd perceived slights against his status. He is especially touchy about his status as the spare not the heir

Harry endlessly complains that he’s forced to inhabit pokier bedrooms than his brother. He is absurdly gleeful at his brother’s “advanced balding”. Very often he sounds like the irritating little brother from hell

In Harry’s telling the royal family at times seems like a cult — perhaps one of those ones in backwoods of rural America that is dedicated to rejecting the modern world

It seems clear that he was looking for an escape route, a way to blow up his coddled, caged panda bear life. A way, perhaps, to blow up everything. The longed-for escape route arrives of course, in the form of Meghan Markle

Whereas Harry had fretted about being second best for his entire life, Meghan is unflappably certain that she’s the centre of the universe — and if the British royal family disagrees, well, she’ll happily take down the British royal family
thetimes.co.uk/article/prince…

Without wishing to descend too far into armchair psychology, one wonders whether Harry’s therapist ever suggested to him that through his relationship with Meghan he may be trying to save his mother

Read the full review 👇
thetimes.co.uk/article/prince…