Prince Harry’s ‘bombshell’ memoir: what might he reveal?

Prince Harry’s highly-anticipated memoir is set to be released before the end of the year, with publishers Penguin Random House hoping to get the book on US shelves in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The “bombshell memoir” was completed by ghostwriter JR Moehringer – a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer – earlier this summer and a finished manuscript has now been signed off by lawyers, according to The Sun.

An official press release issued last year said the Duke of Sussex’s book promises to share “for the very first time” his experience of living life in the public eye “from childhood to the present day”. It is set to cover everything from his time in Afghanistan as part of his military duty to “the joy he has found in being a husband and father”.

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Prince Harry plans to donate proceeds from his as yet unnamed book to charity, a figure which Page Six, the New York Post’s celebrity news site, said would be at least $20m (£14.7m).

“I’m writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become,” said Harry, now 37, in a statement included in the same release. He added that he was “excited” for the public to read an account of his life “that’s accurate and wholly truthful” – a nod to his long-term battles with the media which he spoke about during his bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021.

While he is expected to avoid any overt criticism of his grandmother, the Queen, The Telegraph said Harry is “expected to follow his numerous excoriating television and podcast interview accounts of his upbringing with an equally frank version in writing”.

The Sun reported that the book’s publication risks stoking “new rifts with the Royal Family” and that insiders “worry” that references to the life of his mother, Princess Diana, will cause tension with his “step-mum Camilla, who has been named future Queen Consort”.

So what bombshell revelations could Harry’s memoir contain?

The firm

Since stepping down from royal duties along with Meghan Markle in January 2020, the prince hasn’t held back when discussing his experiences of being part of the UK’s most famous family.

When speaking to Winfrey, Harry revealed that he felt “trapped” in the construct of the institution and that his father had stopped taking his calls. Two months later, speaking on the Armchair Expert podcast, the Prince openly discussed his family’s “genetic pain and suffering” and said he wanted to “break the cycle” for his children.

Racism in the Royal Family

One of the biggest talking points to come out of Harry and Meghan’s TV interview with Winfrey was the couple’s claim that an unnamed member of the Royal Family questioned “how dark” baby Archie was going to be “and what that would mean or look like”. At the time, the Duchess of Sussex would not name names as she said it “would be very damaging to them”.

But Charlie Lankston in the Daily Mail said “Harry may well choose to name the person involved in his memoir – which would no doubt spark a furious backlash, and could well prompt an investigation into that royal’s behaviour”.

Bullying allegations

The prince might also want to put forward his wife’s side of the story on allegations that she “faced a bullying complaint made by one of her closest advisers” while working as a royal, as reported by The Times.

Sources told the paper at the time that she had been accused of driving “two personal assistants out of the household” and “undermining the confidence of a third staff member”.

His relationship with William

Meanwhile, Harry’s fractured relationship with his brother, thought to be triggered by his decision to step down from royal duties, has been widely reported on – but little is known about the precise details of the pair’s painful fallout.

This upcoming memoir “could well offer much more detail about his relationship with his brother – and finally bring to light the Prince's views on what exactly sparked the fall-out in the first place”, said Lankston in the Mail.

“If the project gives the Duke of Sussex an unfettered opportunity to give his side of the story of ‘Megxit’ – the couple’s 2019 decision to step back from royal duties – or settle the score on how the death of his mother, Princess Diana, was handled by the royals, it will doubtless make history,” added Page Six.

Will the Royal Family see the book before it’s published?

It has been reported that the Queen was the only member of the Royal Family who was told about Harry’s memoir before it was publicly announced, with sources close to the Prince of Wales telling The Times last year that Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, were “surprised” at the news.

The Telegraph said that the neither the Royal Family nor their lawyers “have yet had sight of the completed manuscript”.

By convention, “those potentially defamed in writing – including the Royal Family – are usually given a right to reply to accusations ahead of publication, with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex regularly asserting their own legal rights when it comes to articles about them”, added the paper.

While the Daily Mail said it is understood Harry “is keen for the book to show his grandmother in a positive light”, The Sun reported last year that the Royal Family is “getting lawyered up”. Senior palace aides are thought to be in talks with libel experts about the possibility of sending legal warnings to Penguin Random House.

Royal author Christopher Andersen told The Daily Beast that “Prince Charles’ operatives” had been “scrambling for months to find out what other bombshells await, but to no avail”.

“No one expected Harry’s book to be a valentine to his relatives,” Andersen continues. “But you get the sense in the wake of the jubilee that now the gloves are truly off.”