Harry and Meghan #299 Spare The book that makes Twilight look like Tolstoy

Anna2020 · Jan 11, 2023

THE HOUSE WAS XANADU.
High ceilings, priceless art, beautiful swimming pool. Palatial, but above all, ultra-safe.
Better yet, it came with security, paid for by Tyler.
We spent those last days of March 2020 exploring, unpacking. Trying to get our bearings.
Halls, wardrobes, bedrooms, there seemed no end of spaces to discover, and niches for Archie to hide. Meg introduced him to everything.
Look at this statue!
Look at this fountain!
Look at these hummingbirds in the garden!
In the front hall was a painting he found especially interesting. He started every day locked on to it. A scene from ancient Rome. We asked each other why. No clue.
Within a week Tyler’s house felt like home.
Archie took his first steps in the garden a couple of months later, at the height of the global pandemic lockdown.
We clapped, hugged him, cheered.
I thought, for a moment, how nice it would be to share the news with Grandpa or Uncle Willy.
Not long after those first steps Archie went marching up to his favorite painting in the front hall. He stared at it, made a gurgle of recognition. Meg leaned in for a closer look. She noticed, for the first time, a nameplate on the frame. Goddess of the hunt. Diana.
When we told Tyler, he said he hadn’t known.
He’d forgotten the painting was even there.
He said: Gives me chills. Us too.

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex

clueless · Jan 11, 2023

I am hopelessly behind! But thank you all for these incredible threads Spent much of the weekend reading them, no regrets!

The extracts from this book have Smeg all over them, no doubt whatsoever. And each one is more cringeworthy than the last…

What do we make of all this “best-selling non-fiction book of the last decade”? It’s not non-fiction for one thing… but is there a lot of spin? How do they determine this, what data is used and how? Does it include the free audio book downloads? Is it largely nosiness? Am I to believe it really is the best selling book of the decade?

Thank you to the earlier poster who shared a free download link- I have read up to chapter 4 but seeing the extracts that are to come, I am not sure if I will be able to stomach it!

QuackenRevived · Jan 11, 2023

265 said:
OH MY!

Prince Harry mocks the monarchy on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

The duke has done yet another TV interview to tout his book Spare, a pre-taped chat with Stephen Colbert.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Getting Tom Hanks involved might not do Tom's street cred any good...

View attachment 1873385

I’ve always got the impression Tom Hanks thinks he should be bowed down to by all, especially after seeing his po faced response to Ricky Gervais! I bet he jumped at the chance to be involved in this.
Definitely the “Hollywood royalty irked not to have the trappings of THE RF”
which is of course is yet another thing Harry doesn’t realise… the coup of getting Harry to join in what they envy is a temporary balm to their ego and they’ll despise him for doing it at the same as laughing along with him. Mocking what you envy in an attempt to devalue it. (It feels different to me this type of mockery as you can sense the envy too… different to how I view our mocking… that, I view as an attempt to keep sanity )

It’s a harsh lesson in life to realise that it’s for you to want you to be the BEST version of you; everyone else will inevitably want you to be the version of you that suits them best. In comes across to me in the extracts of the book I’ve skim read on here (even as I can’t help myself mocking them) that the people on the planet who most love Harry (and therefore most want the best for him) are Charles & William.

Georgie883 · Jan 11, 2023

Autisteuse said:
This?

Yes that and the blind gossip article. Shocking and deeply disturbing if any truth to it. Something that could also damage the RF almost beyond repair imo. No idea what would happen to PH if what they are saying is true.

Cocobaby09 · Jan 11, 2023

lizaon35 said:
Omg is this true

Tom Bower doesn't say stuff he can be sued for.

StSaturnindeLucian · Jan 11, 2023

Anna2020 said:
Harry blindsided the Queen!
That was the narrative that took hold.
I could feel it oozing into history books, and I could imagine boys and girls at Ludgrove, decades hence, having that hogwash rammed down their throats.

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.

My, little Harold is rather self-important, isn't he? He's going to be footnote in the monarchy, a one time spare of an heir. Kids have enough to learn about in history.

triesherbest · Jan 11, 2023

Just saw someone on tiktok call him Sparey Spice cause he reads out the spice girls lyrics in the audio book

LadyMuck · Jan 11, 2023

Anna2020 said:
THE HOUSE WAS XANADU.
High ceilings, priceless art, beautiful swimming pool. Palatial, but above all, ultra-safe.
Better yet, it came with security, paid for by Tyler.
We spent those last days of March 2020 exploring, unpacking. Trying to get our bearings.
Halls, wardrobes, bedrooms, there seemed no end of spaces to discover, and niches for Archie to hide. Meg introduced him to everything.
Look at this statue!
Look at this fountain!
Look at these hummingbirds in the garden!
In the front hall was a painting he found especially interesting. He started every day locked on to it. A scene from ancient Rome. We asked each other why. No clue.
Within a week Tyler’s house felt like home.
Archie took his first steps in the garden a couple of months later, at the height of the global pandemic lockdown.
We clapped, hugged him, cheered.
I thought, for a moment, how nice it would be to share the news with Grandpa or Uncle Willy.
Not long after those first steps Archie went marching up to his favorite painting in the front hall. He stared at it, made a gurgle of recognition. Meg leaned in for a closer look. She noticed, for the first time, a nameplate on the frame. Goddess of the hunt. Diana.
When we told Tyler, he said he hadn’t known.
He’d forgotten the painting was even there.
He said: Gives me chills. Us too.

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex

And it was this house he admitted they smoked weed.

Anna2020 · Jan 11, 2023

LATE AT NIGHT, WITH everyone asleep, I’d walk the house, checking the doors and windows.
Then I’d sit on the balcony or the edge of the garden and roll a joint.
The house looked down onto a valley, across a hillside thick with frogs. I’d listen to their late-night song, smell the flower-scented air.
The frogs, the smells, the trees, the big starry sky, it all brought me back to Botswana. But maybe it’s not just the flora and fauna, I thought.
Maybe it’s more the feeling of safety. Of life. We were able to get a lot of work done. And we had a lot of work to do.
We launched a foundation, I reconnected with my contacts in world conservation.
Things were getting under control…and then the press somehow learned we were at Tyler’s.
It had taken six weeks exactly, same as Canada.
Suddenly there were drones overhead, paps across the street. Paps across the valley. They cut the fence. We patched the fence. We stopped venturing outside. The garden was in full view of the paps. Next came the helicopters. Sadly, we were going to have to flee.
We’d need to find somewhere new, and soon, and that would mean paying for our own security.
I went back to my notebooks, started contacting security firms again.
Meg and I sat down to work out exactly how much security we could afford, and how much house.
Exactly then, while we were revising our budget, word came down: Pa was cutting me off.
I recognized the absurdity, a man in his mid-thirties being financially cut off by his father.
But Pa wasn’t merely my father, he was my boss, my banker, my comptroller, keeper of the purse strings throughout my adult life. Cutting me off therefore meant firing me, without redundancy pay, and casting me into the void after a lifetime of service. More, after a lifetime of rendering me otherwise unemployable. I felt fatted for the slaughter. Suckled like a veal calf.
I’d never asked to be financially dependent on Pa.
I’d been forced into this surreal state, this unending Truman Show in which I almost never carried money, never owned a car, never carried a house key, never once ordered anything online, never received a single box from Amazon, almost never traveled on the Underground. (Once, at Eton, on a theater trip.)
Sponge, the papers called me. But there’s a big difference between being a sponge and being prohibited from learning independence.
After decades of being rigorously and systematically infantilized, I was now abruptly abandoned, and mocked for being immature?
For not standing on my own two feet?
The question of how to pay for a home and security kept Meg and me awake at nights.
We could always spend some of my inheritance from Mummy, we said, but that felt like a last resort. We saw that money as belonging to Archie. And his sibling.
It was then that we learned Meg was pregnant.

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.

Yorkie99 · Jan 11, 2023

The Tipsy Titian said:
"our little visitor" ????? Who describes a baby like that? Is he saying the baby was only visiting and then went, back to his real family?

Very odd, my gran used to called periods your 'little visitor' which works as a euphemism for something that is only around for a short time but not a baby.

Scotch Mist · Jan 11, 2023

LadyMuck said:
How was the interview Scotchy?

Thanks for asking I had to do a timed test which I just got finished in time. Not sure how well I did as it was difficult to get it all done in the time allocated. If I pass the test then I'll be offered an interview.

LadyMuck · Jan 11, 2023

Yorkie99 · Jan 11, 2023

Anna2020 said:
THE HOUSE WAS XANADU.
High ceilings, priceless art, beautiful swimming pool. Palatial, but above all, ultra-safe.
Better yet, it came with security, paid for by Tyler.
We spent those last days of March 2020 exploring, unpacking. Trying to get our bearings.
Halls, wardrobes, bedrooms, there seemed no end of spaces to discover, and niches for Archie to hide. Meg introduced him to everything.
Look at this statue!
Look at this fountain!
Look at these hummingbirds in the garden!
In the front hall was a painting he found especially interesting. He started every day locked on to it. A scene from ancient Rome. We asked each other why. No clue.
Within a week Tyler’s house felt like home.
Archie took his first steps in the garden a couple of months later, at the height of the global pandemic lockdown.
We clapped, hugged him, cheered.
I thought, for a moment, how nice it would be to share the news with Grandpa or Uncle Willy.
Not long after those first steps Archie went marching up to his favorite painting in the front hall. He stared at it, made a gurgle of recognition. Meg leaned in for a closer look. She noticed, for the first time, a nameplate on the frame. Goddess of the hunt. Diana.
When we told Tyler, he said he hadn’t known.
He’d forgotten the painting was even there.
He said: Gives me chills. Us too.

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex

The painting thing. OMFG.

Sunlifeover50 · Jan 11, 2023

So he didn’t want to spend his own inheritance from his mum as it was meant to be and inheritance for his own children? God what a bloody luxury.

CELESTE CROCKETT · Jan 11, 2023

Anna2020 said:
I WOKE TO a text from Jason.
Bad news.
What is it now?
The Mail on Sunday had printed the private letter Meg had written to her father. The letter that Granny and Pa urged her to write.
February 2019.
I was in bed, Meg was lying next to me, still asleep. I waited a bit, then broke the news to her softly.
Your father’s given your letter to the Mail.
No.
Meg, I don’t know what to say, he’s given them your letter.
That moment, for me, was decisive. About Mr. Markle, but also about the press. There had been so many moments, but that for me was The One. I didn’t want to hear any more talk of protocols, tradition, strategy. Enough, I thought. Enough.
The paper knew it was illegal to publish that letter, they knew full well, and did it anyway. Why? Because they also knew Meg was defenseless. They knew she didn’t have the staunch support of my family, and how else could they have known this, except from people close to the family? Or inside the family?
There was nothing in that letter to be ashamed about. A daughter pleading with her father to behave decently? Meg stood by every word. She’d always known it might be intercepted, that one of her father’s neighbors, or one of the paps staking out his house, might steal his post. Anything was possible. But she never stopped to think her father would actually offer it, or that a paper would actually take it—and print it.
And edit it. Indeed, that might have been the most galling thing, the way the editors cut and pasted Meg’s words to make them sound less loving.
But the pain was compounded tenfold by the simultaneous interviews with alleged handwriting experts, who analyzed Meg’s letter and inferred from the way she crossed her Ts or curved her Rs that she was a terrible person.
Rightward slant? Over-emotional.
Highly stylized? Consummate performer.
Uneven baseline? No impulse control.
The look on Meg’s face as I told her about these libels rolling out…I knew my way around grief, and there was no mistaking it—this was pure grief. She was mourning the loss of her father, and she was also mourning the loss of her own innocence. She reminded me in a whisper, as if someone might be listening, that she’d taken a handwriting class in high school, and as a result she’d always had excellent penmanship. People complimented her. She’d even used this skill at university to earn spare money. Nights, weekends, she’d inscribed wedding and birthday-party invitations, to pay the rent. Now people were trying to say that this was some kind of window into her soul? And the window was dirty?
Meg wanted to sue. Me too. Rather, we both felt we had no choice. If we didn’t sue over this, we said, what kind of signal would that be sending? To the press? To the world? So we conferred again with the Palace lawyer. We were given a runaround.
I reached out to Pa and Willy. They’d both sued the press in the past over invasions and lies.
Pa sued over so-called Black Spider Letters, his memos to government officials. Willy sued over topless photos of Kate. But both vehemently opposed the idea of Meg and me taking any legal action. Why? I asked. They hummed and hahed. The only answer I could get out of them was that it simply wasn’t advisable. The done thing, etc.
I told Meg: You’d think we were suing a dear friend of theirs.

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.

MAYBE if he'd bothered to meet her dad like normal people do this couldve been avoided

Kezzle1 · Jan 11, 2023

The question of how to pay for a home and security kept Meg and me awake at nights.
We could always spend some of my inheritance from Mummy, we said, but that felt like a last resort

WTAF??? Why on earth would your inheritance be a last resort to spend?? Talk about first world fucking problems, I just cannot even express how I feel about this comment

Diagnosis123 · Jan 11, 2023

A bitter Harry, upstaged a real A-Lister

Anna2020 · Jan 11, 2023

WE FOUND A PLACE.
Priced at a steep discount.
Just up the coast, outside Santa Barbara.
Lots of room, large gardens, a climbing frame—even a pond with koi carp.
The koi were stressed, the estate agent warned. So are we. We’ll all get along famously.
No, the agent explained, the koi need very particular care. You’ll have to hire a koi guy.
Uh-huh. And where does one find a koi guy? The agent wasn’t sure.
We laughed. First-world problems.
We took a tour. The place was a dream.
We asked Tyler to look at it too, and he said: Buy it.
So we pulled together a down-payment, took out a mortgage, and in July 2020 we moved in.
The move itself required only a couple of hours.
Everything we owned fitted into thirteen suitcases.
That first night we had a quiet drink in celebration, roasted a chicken, went to bed early.
All was well, we said.
And yet Meg was still under loads of stress. There was a pressing issue with her legal case against the tabloids. The Mail was up to its usual tricks.
Their first crack at offering a defense had been patently ridiculous, so now they were trying a new defense, which was even more ridiculous.
They were arguing that they’d printed Meg’s letter to her father because of a story in People magazine, which quoted a handful of Meg’s friends—anonymously.
The tabloids argued that Meg had orchestrated these quotes, used her friends as de facto spokespeople, and thus the Mail had every right to publish her letter to her father.
More, they now wanted the names of Meg’s previously anonymous friends read into the official court record—to destroy them.
Meg was determined to do everything in her power to prevent that.
She’d been staying up late, night after night, trying to work out how to save these people, and now, on our first morning in the new house, she reported abdominal pains.
And bleeding.
Then she collapsed to the floor.
We raced to the local hospital.
When the doctor walked into the room, I didn’t hear one word she said, I just watched her face, her body language.
I already knew.
We both did.
There had been so much blood.
Still, hearing the words was a blow.
Meg grabbed me, I held her, we both wept.
In my life I’ve felt totally helpless only four times. In the back of the car while Mummy and Willy and I were being chased by paps. In the Apache above Afghanistan, unable to get clearance to do my duty. At Nott Cott when my pregnant wife was planning to take her life. And now.
We left the hospital with our unborn child. A tiny package. We went to a place, a secret place only we knew. Under a spreading banyan tree, while Meg wept, I dug a hole with my hands and set the tiny package softly in the ground.

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.

StSaturnindeLucian · Jan 11, 2023

Surely all those traumatic and invasive pap shots would have been published somewhere? At least on social media. And yet, nothing. A couple of staged Meghan walkabouts and nothing else.

And lots of Royals work for a living. He basically want to be worshipped and believes as the son of Diana he should be exempt from normal life. He's going to end up miserable and alone.
Right now, they're still relatively young and glamorous, they've played a solid game getting support in the States and online.
However, considering what he's really like things are going to implode sooner rather than later.

QuackenRevived · Jan 11, 2023

Dobby Socks said:
Same in my book groups but I don't have the energy to argue with them

Justify similar behaviour in their own lives I expect.

“I’ve never forgiven that cow who works in the village shop. The looks she gives me. Everyone loves her and she’s never been anything but nice to me but I’ve seen her the way she looks at me… the envy, the scheming, she spends all day planning and scheming against me, that’s why my child didn’t get the role of Mary in the nativity at school and her child did, the vile schemer that she is, and she’s got a bigger bedroom than me!”.

Harry and Meghan #299 Spare The book that makes Twilight look like Tolstoy

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