Vinay Menon: Prince Harry has every right to speak his truth. But the more he speaks, the less truthful it seems

Didn’t Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave the royal family for privacy?

I thought they wanted to escape the prying eyes of the demonic tabloids. I thought they wanted to reinvent as celeb-philanthropists in Los Angeles, to jettison the musty dysfunction of Buckingham Palace. I thought they wanted peace and refuge.

If so, Harry and Meghan should sue themselves.

For a couple that claims to hate media frenzies, they keep starting them.

Prince Harry’s new memoir, “Spare,” hit bookstores on Tuesday. You can save the 30 bucks by reading the myriad excerpts that have popped up around the world after the book was accidentally released early in Spain, setting off a Google Translate race to decipher the “bombshells” and tally Harry’s fiery settling of scores.

On Tuesday, CNN assigned five reporters to itemize “the key take-aways from Prince Harry’s explosive memoir.” There was the time Prince William, during a heated conflict over Meghan, knocked his younger brother to the ground in a violent assault.

It seems King Charles has begged his sons to knock it off already with this sibling rivalry to avoid making his “final years a misery.” It might be too late. The brothers urged their father not to marry Camilla, now the Queen Consort, who is described by Harry as a “villain” who leaked daggers to the press to “rehabilitate” her own image.

Camilla is cast into the role of evil Disney stepmother.

Harry comes across as short-sighted in the myopia of his laments.

He writes about his penis, his drug use, his loss of virginity, his kill count while serving in Afghanistan, all with the same disregard for the privacy he claims to cherish. If his goal was to nuke the monarchy, it is he and Meghan who are the collateral damage.

YouGov released a survey this week that found Harry’s favourability rating has cratered. Just 26 per cent of Britons have a positive view of the Duke of Sussex, the lowest number since YouGov started tracking in 2011. The only way Harry could be more unpopular is if were to don a Nazi costume and go clubbing with Matt Gaetz.

This memoir is supposed to be his moment of truth. Instead, it’s a litany of bizarre grievances, real or imagined, a doomed attempt to triangulate the narrative without realizing he is only pushing even the sympathetic further away.

Harry has been forced to cope with horrific tragedy, including the death of his mother Diana when he was just 12. That was heartbreaking, especially since it played out as the world watched. He’s had to deal with conspiracy theories his biological father is James Hewitt, with whom Diana had an affair. In his book, Harry writes that even Charles would crack wise about the rumour: “Who knows if I’m even your real father? Maybe your real father is in Broadmoor, darling boy!”

That’s messed up. But as casual onlookers already know, the royal family is messed up. It’s an anachronistic institution trapped in a modern world. If you went to someone’s house and were forced to curtsy and not make eye contact before being addressed directly, you’d cackle into your tea and never go back. That’s where Harry and Meghan find themselves: they can never go back to the royal family, not after that Oprah interview, the Netflix series and now this cultural TNT of a memoir.

But does Harry really want this estrangement to turn into a permanent goodbye?

It’s not clear. During this week’s media frenzy, including interviews with “60 Minutes” and the cover of People magazine, Harry let slip that he’d like to repair his relationship with his brother and father, that he wants his children to know his hoity-toity relatives across the pond. His eyes betray a regret and reality he dare not speak.

If you’re raking in millions with docs and books that trash your family, your family might not be receptive to any future reconciliation. At this point, after all that’s been said, I’m pretty sure Kate Middleton would rather join the Ukrainian army than go for a mani-pedi with Meghan Markle. And who can blame her?

Those sister-in-laws are three London Underground stops past frenemy.

Prince Harry has every right to speak his truth. But the more he speaks, the less truthful it seems. It can’t be much fun growing up as the spare when your older brother is the heir. Harry is traumatized by the preordained slights he was born into, the absurdities of royalty more than 1,000 years in the making. He has suffered crushing pain and the cosmic vagaries of not having a defined perch in his own world.

My heart goes out to him. Really. But reading his new memoir, the back of my hand also wants to cuff him upside the head and ask, “What are you doing?”

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle relocated to North America to look ahead. But they obviously can’t leave the past behind. You can’t build a future by burning bridges. It’s madness. Instead of starting over, Harry and Meghan are publicly relegating private conflicts by airing dirty laundry on a lucrative clothesline of book sales and TV deals.

This will not damage the royal family — it will only hurt them.

They keep forfeiting their own dream of privacy.

They can’t stop being their own worst enemies.

SHARE: