Prince Harry‘s redemption arc always seems to take one step forward and then two steps back. While some do support the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to quit the Royal life in 2020 — that includes most Canadians, apparently — many, particularly in the U.K., view it as a betrayal of Harry’s family. Not least his father, King Charles.
Harry’s scandalous memoir Spare, specifically, was the cause of no end of controversy, which is still haunting him over a year and a half on from its release. That’s despite various philanthropic and positive PR ventures, like his and Meghan Markle’s anti-cyberbullying initiative and their recent trip to Colombia. Now, at least, it seems Harry is willing to throw the Royal family a bone when it comes to their fears that more unwanted autobiographical material is coming, even if he may be trying to upstage his dad at the same time.
Harry’s Spare re-release is either an olive branch to the Royal family, or another attempt to upstage them
Spare was released in hardback form way back in Jan. 2023, and it’s taken an unusually long time for the book to hit shelves once again as a paperback. Typically, such a re-release happens within six months, but for Spare it will officially take 20. The long delay was related to how the ever-busy Harry was expected to add some fresh chapters to the memoir and give even old readers a new reason to purchase and send it shooting up the international bestseller lists once more.
As it happens, however, the Spare paperback has been confirmed to release with no fresh material when it hits U.S. shelves on Oct. 22, and then U.K. bookstores on the 24th. Seeing as Harry has previously said that he has enough additional sordid secrets to fill a whole other volume, it seems that this is a sign he has deliberately elected not to share any other skeletons from Buckingham Palace’s closets for the time being, perhaps in an attempt to lay the animosity to rest.
On the other hand, that possible message is being obscured by the timing of Spare‘s paperback release. That same week, King Charles is set to make an all-important appearance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa, which will mark the first time he’s taken part in such proceedings since he ascended to the throne in 2022 — meaning he will now be the leader of the organization. The meeting is set to take place from Oct. 21-25.
It’s not as if this meeting has come out of nowhere, as the king was confirmed to attend back in July, despite his cancer diagnosis, so it’s unlikely that Spare‘s return to shelves is a mere coincidence. So which is it? An olive branch extended to the Royal family or a stick to beat them with? If it’s hard for us to work that out then it likely will be for the Royals themselves, which means any goodwill Harry wished to send alongside his book may get lost in delivery.
