Prince Harry has accused his stepmother, Camilla, the queen consort, of leaking private conversations to the media to burnish her own reputation as he promotes a new book that lays bare his story of his life behind palace walls.
In interviews broadcast Sunday and Monday, Harry accused members of the royal family of getting “into bed with the devil” to gain favorable tabloid coverage, singling out Camilla’s efforts to rehabilitate her image with the British people after her longtime affair with his father, now King Charles III.
“That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press,” he told CBS. “There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street.”
After months of anticipation and a sustained publicity blitz, Prince Harry’s autobiography “Spare” finally went on sale in his native UK on Tuesday, threatening more embarrassment for the royal family.Some UK stores opened late for the midnight release of the biggest royal book since Harry’s mother Princess Diana collaborated with Andrew Morton for “Diana: Her True Story” in 1992.
The publication has been accompanied by four television interviews in the UK and the United States, where he now lives with wife Meghan.But the contents of Harry’s ghost-written memoir, which will be available in 16 languages and as an audiobook, have already been widely leaked after copies mistakenly went on sale early in Spain.The book contains a claim from Harry that his brother William physically attacked him as they argued about Meghan, according to those who got their hands one of those copies.It also gives an account of how he lost his virginity, an admission of teenage drug use and a claim he killed 25 people while serving in Afghanistan with the British military, which earned him a rebuke from hardline Islamists the Taliban.
The family, particularly William and father King Charles III, will be fearing what other embarrassing and dangerous revelations are contained within its pages, as the British media picks over Harry’s claims in minute detail.
The book comes on the back of six-hour Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan”, in which the couple again aired their grievances with the royal family and the British media.
If the couple were hoping to elicit sympathy, recent polls appear to show that they are having the opposite effect — at least in the UK.
A YouGov poll on Monday found that 64 percent now have a negative view of the once-popular ginger prince — his lowest-ever rating — and that Meghan also scores dismally.
