Prince Harry has expressed interest in spending more time with his family in the UK, but the damage is done and there may be no coming back from it, says one royal expert.
Harry and his wife Meghan Markle spoke with Oprah Winfrey, co-starred in a Netflix docuseries, with Harry wanting “to tell his truth,” says veteran journalist Kerry Parnell, Telegraph columnist and co-author of The Royal List substack newsletter.
It wasn’t the Oprah Winfrey interview, it wasn’t the Netflix series, it was the tell-all memoir that was the final straw, says the royal expert.
Daily Express US spoke exclusively to Ms Parnell, who said:“I think Prince Harry misplaced his hand by writing it in Spare and being so vindictive to his brother and sister-in-law who he formerly really loved.”
“I think it’s very difficult for the rest of the family to come back from that, which is what we’re seeing.”
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Ms Parnell talked about how Harry might be able to smooth things over, for example, if Harry wanted to explain his actions, explain his feelings, and why he went down this path, it may be of help, but it’s not promised.
She adds: “He had already spoken on Oprah, he had already spoken on Netflix, it was Spare,” says Ms Parnell.
“I think, like, any family, if I wrote that, or you wrote that as a journalist, and printed it, do you expect that they would speak to you again? Probably not, the trust is broken, isn’t it?”
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Harry had a number of grievances, and while they may be valid, says Ms Parnell, the way he went about it, was not.
She says: “I’m sure there are criticisms on both sides, of course there would be, but whether or not it’s all valid is not relevant, he misplaced his hand by printing it.”
“He shouldn’t have printed it, because you can’t come back from that.”
Harry was born into media, and now he gets to control his narrative, it’s been said, but according to Ms Parenll, he’s telling “his” truth, not necessarily “the” truth.
“He wanted to tell his truth, didn’t he? He wanted to tell his truth, that phrase, not the truth, my truth. It’s like, what?”
It’s unclear what Harry’s plan was in publishing the memoir, and that may be the answer, he didn’t have a plan.
We spoke to Ms Parnell about his intent in writing Spare with the journalist saying, “That’s what he wanted to do, and he did it (tell his truth), but he didn’t think about the consequences.”
“The consequence is, it breaks the trust, whatever your grievances are, you can hopefully reach some kind of forgiveness within a family, or whatever kind of relationship, but you can’t if you break the trust.”
“What can they do? They can’t write letters, because they could be published.”