Did Prince Harry cheat?
Ghostwriter addresses strange passages
With his autobiography “Reserve”, Prince Harry caused many astonished readers.
© imago images/PA Images
Prince Harry faces criticism again. He is said to have cheated in his biography. His ghostwriter now protects him.
Did Prince Harry (38) cheat in his memoirs? After the publication of “Reserve” (original title “Spare”), attentive readers complained about alleged inconsistencies in the descriptions of the royal. Now Prince Harry’s ghostwriter JR Moehringer (58) has spoken up and defended the alleged mistakes.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist shared on Twitter a quote from the prince, which can also be read in “Reserve”: “Whatever the reason, my memory is my memory, it does what it does, collects and curates as it sees fit, and it sticks the same way much truth in what I remember and how I remember, as well as in so-called objective facts. Things like chronology and cause and effect are often just fables we tell ourselves about the past.”
And another quote of the Duke of Sussex: “Landscape, geography, architecture, that’s how my memory works. Dates? Sorry, I’ll have to look them up. Dialogue? I do my best but don’t make literal claims, especially when it comes to the ’90s. “
In another tweet Moehringer shares a passage from Mary Karr’s (67) book “The Art of Memoir”: “The line between memory and fact is blurred, between interpretation and fact.”
In “Reserve” Prince Harry claims, among other things, that King Henry VI. (1421-1471) was his “great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather”. However, numerous social media users, historians and critics noted that the 15th-century monarch had only one son, Edward of Westminster. He died childless in 1471 at the age of 17. A direct descent is therefore not possible.
Air New Zealand is also getting involved in the debate
The airline Air New Zealand drew attention to another inconsistency. In his book, Harry writes that his wife Duchess Meghan (41) booked a flight from Mexico to England with the airline for her father Thomas Markle (78) in 2018. “Air New Zealand, First Class, booked and paid for by Meg,” writes Harry. However, New Zealand Air noted that they had never offered such a flight connection and only have “Business Premier Class” instead of First Class.
According to attentive readers, a story in which Princess Diana (1961-1997) left her son a present for his 13th birthday could not be true either. Prince Harry writes that his mother bought him an Xbox shortly before her accident. His aunt Lady Sarah McCorquodale (67) gave this to the prince in September 1997 for his 13th birthday – around two weeks after Princess Diana’s accidental death. However, the game console only came onto the market in 2001.
JR Moehringer has answers ready for anyone who has doubts
But JR Moehringer also pointed out the latter inconsistency an answer in the form of a Harry quote ready: “It was an Xbox. I was delighted. I loved video games. That’s the story anyway. It came up as fact in many memories of my life and I have no idea if it’s true. Pa said Mom had herself injured my head, but maybe I was the one with brain damage? As a defense mechanism, my memory was most likely not recording things the way it used to.”