MANY moons ago, I pointed out that the Markles will need a lot of cash to pay for the lifestyle they want. I said it wouldn’t be pretty or dignified, but perhaps not even I could have foreseen just how low Harry would stoop to secure the loot.
As such I found myself on Monday wondering why I was watching a grown man discussing his beard and the beard of his brother on prime-time TV. Why and how had to come to this?
Let’s keep it simple when it comes to Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. We know he is a deeply, deeply damaged young man. He was born into a role he didn’t want despite the privilege that went with it. He lost his parents’ marriage in a nasty fashion – a mudslinging match in public and admissions of adultery made on TV by both his mother and father. Then he lost his mother in horrific circumstances. Harry blames the press for his mother’s death. This is part of what drives him.
But there is another much simpler motivation – money. The deal the Markles secured for their Netflix betrayal was ‘reportedly’ £88million. Google searches tell me that Harry received about £17million of a £35million book deal for his tell-all book, Spare. More books are to follow although one wonders what is left to tell. In sum, Harry was motivated to destroy his relationship with his family for greed. Someone said to him: We have a very, very large truck full of cash that could be yours, but you have to give us the gory bits, you have to spill all.
Just how large is that truck, Harry asks. How large? Enormous, very, very big, the biggest we have. We have other smaller trucks for celebs and sports stars, but you are a Royal. You are a Prince and a Duke. And this time, unlike when you were small and you got the second-biggest bedroom and the second-best house, this time, Harry, this time you get the biggest truck of all.
Harry knows that it is quite expensive keeping up with the Clooneys and the Serena Williamses of the world out there in sunny California, so he decides to make the deal.
I didn’t think Harry and Meghan could make the Real Money, but then I didn’t think Harry would ever sell out his family. How wrong I was.
The Netflix and book people made it clear to Harry that ‘his story’ needed to be raw, not just sex and drugs. Oh, I’ll give you raw, replied Harry, I’ll give you shock and raw. As well as the sex and drugs I’ll give you mummy, every painful memory I’ve got. The code word, I swear on mummy’s life, I can give you that too. And of course I’ll give you my brother and father too.
It really is that simple. Harry did this, destroyed his own family relationships not just because he was the spare, but because he wanted the money. Greed. It’s one of the deadly sins for a reason.
During the ITV interview on Monday night Harry insisted that there was still a chance for reconciliation with his father and brother. When pushed on what he might say to them, he acted with disbelief: I am not going to disclose what might be said in a private conversation, do you think I am some kind of crazy person, was the look in his eye. Never mind the fact Harry just wrote an entire book, gave an interview to Oprah and was giving an interview at that very moment disclosing private conversations with his family which had already happened.
Just how removed from reality is Harry? He certainly will serve up the details on any future ‘peace summit’ if there is another truck full of money outside the door.
Surely that, dear reader, is the problem. It is simply no longer possible for Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, to have anything like a family relationship with his father and brother because they know that anything they say to him could end up in a book or an interview if the price is right. Sure, I accept the Palace may have leaked and planted stories against Harry and Meghan. If you don’t believe that is possible, I suggest you are naive.
But that is very different to going out there and writing a tell-all book on everything from bedrooms to beards to fist fights. That is not just on a different scale, it is in a different category. It is in the category marked betrayal, greed, envy and indeed anger. This fight just gets uglier by the day. Harry and Meghan got their hundred million and it only cost them their dignity.
