Prince Harry’s leaked memoir extracts has ‘perplexed’ Jonathan Dimbleby (Picture: Rex/Getty Images)
The Duke of Sussex’s disclosures in his new book are the sort that usually ‘come from B-list celebrities’, a friend of the King has said.
Broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby said he was ‘perplexed’ by Harry’s decision to publish a book.
The memoir, Spare, which was accidentally released early in Spain, includes personal details of his love life, drug-taking and rifts within his family.
Mr Dimbleby, whose 1994 biography of Charles revealed details his infidelity, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he imagines the King is ‘extremely pained’ by the content in the book.
He said: ‘I’m concerned incidentally that everyone uses the word “revelations”.
‘Yes, there are obviously revelations about how he lost his virginity, taking drugs and how many people he feels he might have shot down in Afghanistan from his Apache, but those are the kinds of revelations in part that you would expect, I suppose, from a kind of B-list celebrity.
‘Much more significant are not what you would call revelations but allegations – complaints, the anger and pain of what he is saying.
‘His assertion that this is his side because so far there has only been one side. It seems to me that I have not heard the other side at all because the other side is always silent.’
Prince Charles and Jonathan Dimbleby at Highgrove during the filming of the television documentary ‘Charles the private man, the public role’ (Picture: PA)
Mr Dimbleby also said he would be ‘very surprised’ if Harry was not invited to the coronation, because to do otherwise would ‘simply fuel the flames’.
Buckingham Palace hasn’t officially commented on the book.
Spare is the latest in a string of public pronouncements by the prince and his wife Meghan since they quit royal life and moved to California in 2020.
It is due to be published around the world on Tuesday.
Spare is due out Tuesday – but many portions have already leaked to the press
In other excerpts obtained by the Guardian newspaper, the duke claims he was physically attacked by his brother and knocked to the floor during a furious confrontation over the Duchess of Sussex.
Harry also alleges that it was William and the Princess of Wales who encouraged him to wear a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party 2005 and ‘howled’ with laughter when they saw it.
Harry refers to his mother as mummy and said his father, now the King, did not hug him when he sat on his bed and told him Diana had died.
The duke also claimed that a woman with ‘powers’ relayed him a message from his mother saying he is ‘living the life she couldn’t’.
In clips of an interview promoting his book with Good Morning America, Harry said Diana would have been ‘sad’ about her sons’ fractured relationship.
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Jonathan Dimbleby also said he would be ‘very surprised’ if Harry was not invited to his father’s coronation.
