Why I won’t be buying Prince Harry’s memoir

The Duke of Sussex’s much-anticipated memoir is set to be released in January. Yet, if we judge it by the Duchess of Sussex’s recent interviews, Laura Hampson isn’t holding her breath for anything juicy to come out of it

When I buy a memoir, I want the nitty-gritty of what really went on during those talked-about moments (Getty/Penguin Random House)

The Duke of Sussex truly could not have picked a better title for his upcoming memoir and, judging by the reaction on social media, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Earlier this week Prince Harry’s publisher Penguin Random House revealed that the 38-year-old’s much-anticipated memoir will be called Spare, and that it will be released on 10 January next year.

The headline alone has caused chaos among royal fans who think it is a jibe at the royal family, with whom Harry and the Duchess of Sussex have reportedly had strained ties ever since they stepped down as senior members of the firm in 2020. “Spare” is, of course, a reference to Harry always being in his brother’s shadow, as the spare to William’s heir.

The book has already gone on pre-sale in the UK for those of us who have a spare £28 lying about (read: none of us). But I, for one, will not be buying it.

I know, I know. I am quite literally a journalist who reports on royals for a living but, judging from the content we’ve received from Harry and Meghan Markle so far, I feel as though whatever is in the book will be little more than a tick-box PR exercise.

Hear me out: when Harry and Meghan sat down with Oprah in 2021, Meghan bravely revealed the extent of her mental health issues while she was a member of the royal family. She said that she was given next to no support, and she revealed that, before Archie was born, they received racist comments from one unnamed member of the royal family. Harry, however, revealed next to nothing.

In Meghan’s most notable interviews since, both released in the past couple of months to help promote her new podcast, Archetypes, it feels as if she has given us... nothing. Meghan has drip-fed us content by way of Archetypes, revealing that Harry helped her at her “worst point” and that Archie’s nursery caught fire while she and Harry were on their South African royal tour. Yet, very little juicy details about what life in the royal family is really like have been shared. And isn’t that what we truly want to know? When I buy a memoir I want gossip. I want detail. I want the nitty-gritty of what really went on during those talked-about moments.

In saying this, I’m sure that Harry will write poignantly about losing his mother at such a young age, about joining the army, and he may even touch on meeting Meghan and how he dealt with the intense media pressure that came with it. Even if he doesn’t include the details we so long for, a royal releasing a memoir is historic; the last to do so was Sarah Ferguson in 1996, with her book My Story. So while I may not be joining the pre-order ranks, come January, if I succumb to the peer pressure and you spot me with a copy in my hand... no you didn’t!

Until next time,

Laura Hampson

Deputy lifestyle editor