The author and journalist Tina Brown has said Prince Harry could "name names" in his upcoming book as to the identity of the member of the royal family accused of making racist comments about his firstborn's skin color.
In an interview given to the Washington Post, Brown went on to state her belief that the royals should write Harry a "huge check" to postpone the tell-all book.
Brown has recently published the book The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor, the Truth and the Turmoil, which examines in detail the public and private triumphs and trials faced by modern members of the British royal family.
Speaking about the relationship between Harry, his brother William and the wider royal family, Brown said: "The relationship now is pretty much non-existent."
"It's got a lot of healing to do before there's any relationship now. I think it's even possible it could have been healed after the Oprah interview, although it was a very explosive and hurtful interview as far as [the royals] were concerned," she continued.
"But Harry's announcement that he's also going to do a tell-all memoir coming out this September was just a huge issue for the whole family.
"They have it now hanging over them like the sword of Damocles, that come the fall they're gonna get another boatload of flack from inside their own family. Just at a point where the monarchy's very fragile with the Queen on a glide path to the end of her life. So there's a lot of anger about that."
Harry announced his intention to publish his memoir after signing a multi-million dollar deal with publishers Penguin Randomhouse in 2021. The book is scheduled to be released this year with critics accusing the prince of deliberately trying to overshadow, or furthermore capitalize off of, his grandmother the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
"I'm writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become," Harry released in a statement about the book.
"My hope is that in telling my story—the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned—I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think. I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to share what I've learned over the course of my life so far and excited for people to read a firsthand account of my life that's accurate and wholly truthful."
As to the content of the book, interviewer Joanna Coles posed to Brown the question as to what it might reveal, "because it's hard to think of what could be more explosive than accusations that the royal family are racist which obviously they made during the Oprah interview?"
"Well, no names were named on that interview," was Brown's response. "Maybe he will name names. I'm told it's going to be very harsh... I am told it's going to be a harsh book because he's anxious to quote, 'tell his truth'."
Coles then raised the point that Harry must feel anxious to earn the large sum he's been contracted to receive as a result of the book's publication, with Brown's response being that the royals should consider buying his silence.
"Personally I think the royal family should write a huge cheque," she told Coles, "and say, 'here Harry, here's a check for your security—maybe you could just sort of postpone [the book] indefinitely'."
Harry is not the first member of the royal family to write a memoir with the Queen giving her blessing and encouragement to aged relatives such as her distant cousin Princess Marie Louise and her aunt, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester to record their memories for prosperity in the early years of her reign.
Other books though have proven to be disastrous for the royals such as Prince Charles and Princess Diana's collaborations with biographers in the 1990s, Sarah Ferguson's autobiography released in 1996 which caused a falling-out with former sister-in-law Diana over the number of times she was mentioned, and the disgraced king Edward VIII's memoirs released in the 1950s.
Harry's literary venture is expected to set the record straight on a number of issues including his decision, along with wife Meghan, to step down as full-time working members of the royal family and his relationships with his father and brother.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
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