A certain book

To Smileless2.

In my opinion, the 'truth' in question is impossible to know.

On one side there is Prince Harry's version, per his book and on the other....? Um, nothing. There is always two sides to a story.

The fact that Prince Harry felt compelled to 'write' a book is a sad reflection on his unhappy life.

Hang on a minute... don't most siblings argue? Fight from time to time? My sister wanted nothing to do with me when I joined her in school! I'll bet that most younger siblings feel hard-done by. All the rather pathetic quotes from Prince Harry on life growing up are completely par for normal family life.

I feel that Prince Hary is a damaged individual, (very probably being egged on by a wife who realises which buttons she needs to press) to manipulate him. Losing his mother was very traumatic (as of course it would be) and perhaps he needs further help to deal with his emotions.

I will admit to feeling that the British press have treated Harry shabbily but much public ire has come from his asinine statements and he seems to dig ever bigger holes for himself. He is to me a sad, rather pathetic but very selfish boy who needs help.

Surely the public will never know the truth of what has been written in the 'Spare' book.

Harry seems to be constantly focusing on the negatives in his life and both magnifying them and intimating that they only apply to him. I'm sure there have been many but so many of them are not directed at him but are, and have been for many years, accepted procedure for the RF. For example the monarch and heir did/have not travelled together for years.

^Lee Brown – New York Post

Prince Harry says he was bred to offer spare organs to heir William

Prince Harry bitterly believes he was only bred to offer literal spare parts for his brother in case the heir apparent ever needed new organs.

“Two years older than me, Willy was the Heir, whereas I was the Spare,” the exiled prince wrote in explaining the title of his memoir, Spare, which was officially released Wednesday.

“I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy,” he wrote of his 40-year-old brother and current heir to the throne, William.

He said he understood his role was to be a “diversion” and “distraction” from his brother — or to provide, “if necessary, a spare part” to him.

“Kidney, perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow,” he added in morose detail.

He also noted how his dad, now King Charles III, could never be on a plane with his elder son, William, “because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out”.

“But no one gave a damn whom I travelled with; the Spare could always be spared,” Harry claimed.

“This was all made explicitly clear to me from the start of life’s journey and regularly reinforced thereafter,” he claimed of his apparent throwaway standing in the family.

Harry complained that the heir and spare clarification “wasn’t merely how the press referred to us”, but was also “the shorthand used by” his royal family, including “Mummy,” the late Princess Diana, “and even Granny,” the since-deceased Queen Elizabeth II.

He says he was 20 when he was first told that his dad had greeted his birth by quipping: “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and a Spare — my work is done.”

“A joke. Presumably,” Harry wrote, continuing the ruthless dig at the king by claiming that “minutes after delivering this bit of high comedy, Pa was said to have gone off to meet with his girlfriend”.

Despite naming his memoir Spare — and using his clear distaste for his role in life to justify his ultimate split from his family — Harry maintains that he was initially accepting of it.

“I took no offence, I felt nothing about it, any of it,” he wrote — initially acknowledging his incredibly privileged life.

“Every boy and girl, at least once, imagines themselves as a prince or a princess. Therefore, Spare or no Spare, it wasn’t half bad to actually be one,” he conceded.

That soon changed, however, with Harry feeling there was a “public sacrifice of the Spare” to help elevate other royals, starting with 2002 headlines damning his druggie lifestyle — which he now admits had been mostly true anyway.

It grew worse when William and his wife, Kate Middleton, had two kids, according to Harry — who reckons he was told that as fifth in line for the throne, he was “no longer even the Spare of the Spare”.

Still, his supposed role in life was largely blamed for one of the most dramatic moments in the book, when Harry claims his brother knocked him to the floor during a fight.

That, Harry wrote, came because William “was in full Heir mode, and couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t dutifully playing the role of the Spare”.

The royal family has yet to comment on Harry’s book or his seemingly endless tour of TV and magazine interviews.^

So basically he’s claiming that his parents didn’t actually want a second child and only had him to ensure the future of the monarchy. And he expects apologies and reconciliation?

He's not telling us anything we didn't know regarding Charles and William not travelling together. I would have thought 'no one caring' how Harry travelled was the freedom he wanted. If there had been rules for him he would be complaining about that.

I doubt he has ever faced the anger he felt for his mother following her death.

What are all these therapy sessions for then?

Talking of his anger for everyone with one exception

It's now, officially, the fastest selling non-fiction book in history:

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/prince-harry-spare-autobiography-memoir-b2259565.html

The ghost writer if the book has now said 'The lines between fact and memory are blurry'.

I don't consider him to be 'a sad, rather pathetic but very selfish boy who needs help'.
Despite receiving immense amounts of help and support from many quarters, he is revealing himself as an unpleasant and vindictive man, because for the first time in his privileged life his demands (limited royal duties but full-time privileges) have not been met.

I agree eazybee. What Kate says reminds me of HM’s brilliant phrase ‘recollections may vary’.

Germanshepherdsmum

I don’t suppose posters are looking at the niceties of accounting practices. H has received income amounting to millions of dollars by way of an advance and H has paid out of that income a relatively pitiful sum to charity. Accounting practices are irrelevant to the principle that has been the subject of comment.

Wouldn't it happen that from his advance (income) he'd pay expenses, 45% in UK tax, 37% rate in US tax (quick google reveals US rate), and the amount he promised to charity?

Callistemon21

Germanshepherdsmum

Siope

I understand that a fixed sum is going to charity, so whether it’s a small percentage of overall profit depends on how many are sold, and at what price.

It has been reported that H received a $20m advance for his book and has paid £1.5m to two charities (in total).

Right - firstly what is the exchange rate?

Google: 20,000,000 US dollar = 16,468,200.00 Pound sterling

I love the way his book has been classified as non fiction, bearing in mind the amount of fiction if appears to contain.

I read that too Kate. May well be the understatement of 2023!!

Anniebach

Talking of his anger for everyone with one exception

This has to be the most astute, perceptive comment
I have EVER read on this subject, the key never turned.

Norah in the UK and US - don’t know about elsewhere - royalties are counted as income and subject to income taxes. Certainly all costs incurred against (normally I’d say writing) the co-authoring of the book, and any associated with revisions, can be offset against tax. This would, in this instance, include the fee paid to the ghost writer, assuming Harry and not the publisher is liable for that.

Tax on royalties is quite complex. There are rules for corporate royalties which differ from rules for individual royalties. And there are then tax rules that apply, in some but not all countries, to where the royalties were earned, to where the corporate body or individual resides (not necessarily where they live) for tax purposes, and whether the place of tax residence has a tax treaty with countries that require tax paid on income earned there, and what the limits of that tax treaty are. The US, for example, has a tax treaty with the UK so that expat earnings up to X amount per year are only taxed in one country not both. The limit is generally in 5 figures, and obviously is impacted by the exchange rate.

And then there is the perennial debate about whether advances should all be recorded for a single tax year - the year the advance is earned - or offset over several years, as royalties would be.

Yes indeed Smileless

Just seen this …

GrannyGravy13

Just seen this …

He surely didn't write that himself!!

Callistemon21

GrannyGravy13

Just seen this …

He surely didn't write that himself!!

If he didn’t Kindle could be in trouble, it’s part of their publicity blurb and it is attributed to him?

It’s never his fault!

It woild be nice if the Windsors were not so rich, then we could see their troubles in relation to most other people's troubles.

I guess that if Prince William's sibling had been a girl she would not have had the angst that Harry suffers from. Primogeniture is a nuisance and always was a nuisance, besides being shakily based in theistic determinism.

Siope

Norah in the UK and US - don’t know about elsewhere - royalties are counted as income and subject to income taxes. Certainly all costs incurred against (normally I’d say writing) the co-authoring of the book, and any associated with revisions, can be offset against tax. This would, in this instance, include the fee paid to the ghost writer, assuming Harry and not the publisher is liable for that.

Tax on royalties is quite complex. There are rules for corporate royalties which differ from rules for individual royalties. And there are then tax rules that apply, in some but not all countries, to where the royalties were earned, to where the corporate body or individual resides (not necessarily where they live) for tax purposes, and whether the place of tax residence has a tax treaty with countries that require tax paid on income earned there, and what the limits of that tax treaty are. The US, for example, has a tax treaty with the UK so that expat earnings up to X amount per year are only taxed in one country not both. The limit is generally in 5 figures, and obviously is impacted by the exchange rate.

And then there is the perennial debate about whether advances should all be recorded for a single tax year - the year the advance is earned - or offset over several years, as royalties would be.

Interesting. I know brother pays tax in both UK and US. I think you're saying royalty income (after expenses) is different?

Caleo

It woild be nice if the Windsors were not so rich, then we could see their troubles in relation to most other people's troubles.

I guess that if Prince William's sibling had been a girl she would not have had the angst that Harry suffers from. Primogeniture is a nuisance and always was a nuisance, besides being shakily based in theistic determinism.

Queen Elizabeth II abolished primogeniture when William and Catherine got married, if Charlotte had been born first she would have been above any male siblings born subsequently.

But, GrannyGravy , that is still primogeniture. It's about the first born and so forth ,not about the sex.