The ramifications of Prince Harry’s highly anticipated tell-all will be catastrophic, one expert believes.
“The consequences of this will be far-reaching and may be highly destructive,” royal author Richard Fitzwilliams told The Daily Mail on Thursday after the book’s name, Spare, and release date, January 10, were announced.
According to Fitzwilliams, the title is “sensational” and “implies that [Harry] was not valued or … that he did not feel at the centre of events”, Page Six reports.
In its press release, Penguin Random House described the contents of the Duke of Sussex’s autobiography as “raw, unflinching honesty”, which Fitzwilliams believes has Buckingham Palace “very concerned, especially since these are the early months of King Charles’ reign”.
“There will undoubtedly be interviews, serialisation and endless speculation about this memoir,” Fitzwilliams told the Mail, adding that he thinks the 38-year-old prince “should have waited many years” to tell his story.
“Even Edward VIII, by then the Duke of Windsor, waited until 1951 before A King’s Story was published,” he noted.
Mark Borkowski, an author and publicity expert, echoed Fitzwilliams’ sentiments, predicting that “the damage to the royal family will be great”.
“Charles’ retaliation could include not giving their children their prince and princess titles, and even withdrawing their own titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex,” Borkowski said of Harry, wife Meghan Markle, 41, and the couple’s kids — son Archie, 3, and daughter Lilibet, 1.
Borkowski also agreed that the royal family was likely in for “a nervous Christmas … as they anticipate the worst”.
“For the new king, still planning his coronation, this could not have come at a worse time,” he said.
Charles’ official crowning ceremony will take place on May 6, 2023 — a date many social media users suspect was chosen purposefully as a diss to his son and daughter-in-law.
“So King Charles The Cruel has set his Coronation for the 6th of May next year … AKA his grandson Prince Archie of Sussex’s 4th birthday,” one of many critics tweeted in response to the news. “Chile how ghetto. I hate it here. Anyway, Harry when’s that memoir dropping.”
Earlier this month, Tom Bower, who wrote Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, told Page Six that Harry’s relatives are “hugely nervous” about Spare, which he described as a “time bomb”.
It’s also been reported that Charles will ban Harry from his coronation if the duke’s book is critical of Queen Consort Camilla.
“It is one thing for Harry to attack Charles — he can take it on the chin. But if Harry forces him to choose, by laying into Camilla in his book, I have no doubt he will choose Camilla,” a source recently told The Daily Beast, adding that the new monarch is “incredibly protective” of his second wife.
Page Six broke the news last July that the prince was writing a book initially slated for publication in November.
This article originally appeared on NY Post and was reproduced with permission
