When I was young, my grandmother used to mail us her weekly copies of the Star and Enquirer. I didn’t bother watching The Crown because I read Kitty Kelley’s book and it could get no better than that.
My homeschool PhD in the affairs of the Windsor-Mountbatten family makes me eminently qualified to say I believe 90% of what Prince Harry is saying to the press, in the Netflix documentary, and in his upcoming memoir Spare. Which I have, of course, preordered.
It is truly a gift to have lived long enough to watch Martin Bashir’s Diana interview and read her son’s tell-all. Camilla IS an evil stepmother? William IS an asshole? A frostbitten penis? Privileged rich families with secrets is one of my guilty pleasure fiction genres. But this isn’t fiction! TELL ME EVERYTHING, HENRY.
Is Harry blameless? Nah. I think he could have done a much better job prepping Meghan for the role instead of playing a hide-from-the-press game. I also think Harry only hates the cameras he can’t control. But it stinks to have lost your (equally messy) mother in such a public way at the age of 12. He’s done a lot of work to get himself to the functional-ish point he’s at now.
But the sidelining of Harry started years ago when George was born and all of a sudden Charles was talking about streamlining the monarchy to just the direct heirs to the throne. It’s hard to find those stories now because the Queen’s death and Harry’s projects have cluttered up the online searches.
If anything good (other than my own shameless titillation) can come from the Netflix documentary and Spare, I hope it dampens the narrative that Meghan is some evil puppetmistress that tore innocent Harry away from his family. I think Harry had been looking for a way to break off for years and the racist behavior toward his wife and son was his way out.
When Spare is released tomorrow, I will evolve into my glorious final celebrity trashgossip weasel form.
I am not a full on royal watcher, but I did ask for Spare for Christmas so that’s coming to me when it comes out.
I am, however, a child of Star Magazine from a time when I was well too young. It was passed around the family
We are one in the same… I have every Royal Tell All book & I’ve been there since the beginning of Charles & Di’s wedding & now seeing her boys step into the scandal days… I”M HERE FOR IT! I will be waiting by my door tomorrow for my book to be delivered where I preordered it!