Editor’s note: Dr. Peggy Drexler is a research psychologist, documentary filmmaker, and author, including two books on gender and family and the upcoming “Mean,” a book on women’s misbehavior, to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2024. Her latest film, “King Coal,” will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. The views expressed in this article are his own.
(CNN) — The soap opera that is Prince Harry versus the British monarchy continued this week with the buzz surrounding the upcoming release of his memoir, “Spare.” Contents of the book were leaked and excerpts from his upcoming interviews with “60 Minutes” were released and ITV offered some startling anecdotes and heightened the already acute tension between the Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan Markle, and the royal family. Sensational details aside, the most notable revelations included new details about Harry’s relationship with his brother, Prince William, whom he apparently refers to in the book as his “archenemy.”
Public interest in the royal family is at an all-time high — thanks both to real-world events including the loss of Queen Elizabeth II, the impending coronation of Harry’s father, King Charles III, and the resignation of the former Prime Minister Liz Truss, as well as the enormous popularity of fictional series like “The Crown” — and Harry and Meghan are certainly capitalizing on that. Meanwhile, the royal family, including William, have remained silent.
Good for them. Where Harry may have once engendered some sympathy for having endured a lifetime being the “shadow” — the younger of the two brothers, now fifth in line to the throne (behind his 7-year-old niece, Princess Charlotte). — empathy is running out. Harry and Meghan have resigned from the royal family amid complaints that they preferred a private life as “normal people” as they did not want the media attention that came with being royals, including being tabloid fodder. . In an excerpt from a forthcoming interview, Harry told ITV: “I want a family. Not an institution.”
And yet here they are, wholly and willingly creating that cannon fodder themselves.
And cannon fodder it is. Among the gossipy accusations Harry hurls at his brother in “Spare” include details of a physical altercation between the two during which William knocked Harry to the ground, leaving him scratched and bruised, and claims that William and his wife, Kate Middleton , were responsible for encouraging Harry’s controversial Nazi costume in 2005. The revelations in “Spare” also talk about Meghan’s relationship with Kate, including a claim that Kate demanded that Meghan apologize for once suggesting that she had ” baby brain.” Buckingham Palace has repeatedly refused to comment on the book.
Penguin Random House worldwide
Through these revelations, what we’re seeing is a little brother desperate to fight a lifetime of feeling inferior, but doing it in the dirtiest way possible. And, well, even pathetic.
Competition between children is common, and sibling rivalry even more so, especially when there are only two of them. Certainly most are not born into families with established hierarchies that serve to remind them of their exact place. But brotherly discord has been around throughout time, inspiring countless works of art across the board (most of them tragedies). Harry is not special: his is one of the most common dramas of human nature.
Prince Harry and Prince William in 2014. (Credit: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
Nor is he a victim, nor blameless. While there has been much talk since their union began about Meghan’s influence in Harry’s defection from the family, it is now clear that he, hurt, went looking for what he needed: someone to help separate him from his family and Maybe someone who would support him and understand his anger. He found it in her, a woman whose ambition launched her acting career and whose own family life included contentious relationships with his half-sister and her father; a woman who wasn’t afraid to express herself, even in the presence of royalty.
It’s clear that Harry and Meghan are, on some level, trying to take control of the narrative about themselves after negative press coverage brought misogyny and racism into an already toxic family dynamic. But Harry’s attempts now to heal those wounds by making private family matters public are not noble and will not save him either. Indeed, through Harry’s revelations, one can now feel more empathy for William, a man who was raised, from birth to him, with a set destiny and, unlike Harry, few options.
William will be king and Harry will not. But whether this is something William desires, or something he will do out of pure patriotic and family duty is unknown. That’s because William is taking the path of silence. Isn’t it ironic that we know so much more about Harry and Meghan, the couple who gave up on royal life because they wished to remain private, than the couple who chose to stay?
While we can, and should, have some disdain for the way Harry has chosen to approach the circumstances of his life, it’s also possible to have some compassion and understanding for him. After all, he didn’t entirely create himself. And, sheltered and super-privileged as he was for much of his upbringing, he’s probably a pretty immature 38-year-old.
Now, he’s pushing against the machinery that made him the only way he knows how, and possibly because it’s the only way he knows how to make his own money and live independently. He felt exploited as a child and young adult; now, in turn, he benefits from his family (and earns an enormous amount of money in the process).
Perhaps one day we will hear Harry as Harry, a man truly independent from the royal family from whom he has claimed, time and time again, that he desperately wants to break away. Until then, we can likely expect more of the same negativity, guilt, immaturity, and victimization – qualities, indeed, quite unbecoming of a royal. But, well, Harry is no longer one.
Editor’s note: Dr. Peggy Drexler is a research psychologist, documentary filmmaker, and author, including two books on gender and family and the upcoming “Mean,” a book on women’s misbehavior, to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2024. Her latest film, “King Coal,” will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. The views expressed in this article are his own.
(CNN) — The soap opera that is Prince Harry versus the British monarchy continued this week with the buzz surrounding the upcoming release of his memoir, “Spare.” Contents of the book were leaked and excerpts from his upcoming interviews with “60 Minutes” were released and ITV offered some startling anecdotes and heightened the already acute tension between the Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan Markle, and the royal family. Sensational details aside, the most notable revelations included new details about Harry’s relationship with his brother, Prince William, whom he apparently refers to in the book as his “archenemy.”
Public interest in the royal family is at an all-time high — thanks both to real-world events including the loss of Queen Elizabeth II, the impending coronation of Harry’s father, King Charles III, and the resignation of the former Prime Minister Liz Truss, as well as the enormous popularity of fictional series like “The Crown” — and Harry and Meghan are certainly capitalizing on that. Meanwhile, the royal family, including William, have remained silent.
Good for them. Where Harry may have once engendered some sympathy for having endured a lifetime being the “shadow” — the younger of the two brothers, now fifth in line to the throne (behind his 7-year-old niece, Princess Charlotte). — empathy is running out. Harry and Meghan have resigned from the royal family amid complaints that they preferred a private life as “normal people” as they did not want the media attention that came with being royals, including being tabloid fodder. . In an excerpt from a forthcoming interview, Harry told ITV: “I want a family. Not an institution.”
And yet here they are, wholly and willingly creating that cannon fodder themselves.
And cannon fodder it is. Among the gossipy accusations Harry hurls at his brother in “Spare” include details of a physical altercation between the two during which William knocked Harry to the ground, leaving him scratched and bruised, and claims that William and his wife, Kate Middleton , were responsible for encouraging Harry’s controversial Nazi costume in 2005. The revelations in “Spare” also talk about Meghan’s relationship with Kate, including a claim that Kate demanded that Meghan apologize for once suggesting that she had ” baby brain.” Buckingham Palace has repeatedly refused to comment on the book.
Penguin Random House worldwide
Through these revelations, what we’re seeing is a little brother desperate to fight a lifetime of feeling inferior, but doing it in the dirtiest way possible. And, well, even pathetic.
Competition between children is common, and sibling rivalry even more so, especially when there are only two of them. Certainly most are not born into families with established hierarchies that serve to remind them of their exact place. But brotherly discord has been around throughout time, inspiring countless works of art across the board (most of them tragedies). Harry is not special: his is one of the most common dramas of human nature.
Prince Harry and Prince William in 2014. (Credit: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
Nor is he a victim, nor blameless. While there has been much talk since their union began about Meghan’s influence in Harry’s defection from the family, it is now clear that he, hurt, went looking for what he needed: someone to help separate him from his family and Maybe someone who would support him and understand his anger. He found it in her, a woman whose ambition launched her acting career and whose own family life included contentious relationships with his half-sister and her father; a woman who wasn’t afraid to express herself, even in the presence of royalty.
It’s clear that Harry and Meghan are, on some level, trying to take control of the narrative about themselves after negative press coverage brought misogyny and racism into an already toxic family dynamic. But Harry’s attempts now to heal those wounds by making private family matters public are not noble and will not save him either. Indeed, through Harry’s revelations, one can now feel more empathy for William, a man who was raised, from birth to him, with a set destiny and, unlike Harry, few options.
William will be king and Harry will not. But whether this is something William desires, or something he will do out of pure patriotic and family duty is unknown. That’s because William is taking the path of silence. Isn’t it ironic that we know so much more about Harry and Meghan, the couple who gave up on royal life because they wished to remain private, than the couple who chose to stay?
While we can, and should, have some disdain for the way Harry has chosen to approach the circumstances of his life, it’s also possible to have some compassion and understanding for him. After all, he didn’t entirely create himself. And, sheltered and super-privileged as he was for much of his upbringing, he’s probably a pretty immature 38-year-old.
Now, he’s pushing against the machinery that made him the only way he knows how, and possibly because it’s the only way he knows how to make his own money and live independently. He felt exploited as a child and young adult; now, in turn, he benefits from his family (and earns an enormous amount of money in the process).
Perhaps one day we will hear Harry as Harry, a man truly independent from the royal family from whom he has claimed, time and time again, that he desperately wants to break away. Until then, we can likely expect more of the same negativity, guilt, immaturity, and victimization – qualities, indeed, quite unbecoming of a royal. But, well, Harry is no longer one.
