Not again ”- that would be a fitting description of the reaction to the news that Prince Harry wants to pour out his heart in an“ intimate and deeply felt ”autobiography.
The rubble caused by the so-called truth bombs in the interview between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Oprah Winfrey has not yet been cleared, as the next explosion is already in the house, especially for the Queen's platinum jubilee next year.
Gina Thomas
Features correspondent based in London.
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The fact that Prince Harry hired the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author JR Moehringer for the project feeds Buckingham Palace's concern about further shocks. Because Moehringer has made a name for himself with two books that settle accounts with fathers. There is his story about the father who got away with it when the son was little, so that he looked for surrogate fathers in the local pub. Moehringer describes this story in the souvenir tape "Tender Bar", the film of which the actor George Clooney, who is friends with Harry and Meghan, has just produced. And then there are the outspoken memoirs of tennis player Andre Agassi. They tell of the tyranny of his father and the psychological effects on the son.Moehringer is said to have found out about difficult father-son relationships while working on this book from Freud and Jung. Thanks to his talent as a ghostwriter, the work "Open" climbed to first place on the New York Times bestseller list. The newspaper found that it was not just a first-class sports souvenir tape, but a real, at the same time anxious and soulful Bildungsroman with dark comedy.
$ 20 million contract
The publisher Penguin Random House apparently expects something similar from Moehringer's collaboration with Prince Harry on his “literary memories”. There is talk of a $ 20 million treaty for world rights. The profit will go to charity, claims Harry. He declares that he does not write as the prince "as who I was born, but as the man I became". It has been noted, not without mockery, that he signed the declaration with "Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex". This has once again brought him the charge of capitalizing on his royal origins, from which he wants to break free according to his own account. Of course, it has also not gone unnoticed that on the front page of her extremely negatively received children's book "The Bench" as Meghan,Duchess of Sussex, although it is against etiquette. She is either Meghan or Duchess of Sussex. The importance she attaches to the title came to light in the Oprah Winfrey interview when, in connection with the allegations of racism against the royal family, she accused Prince Charles of denying his grandson Archie the prince title.