Prince Harry's revelatory memoir was an exercise in canny public relations to get ahead of the tabloid press by revealing his own "dirty laundry," according to a discussion on a new episode of Newsweek's The Royal Report podcast.
As well as receiving praise upon its publication in January 2023, Harry's memoir, Spare, earned him a wave of criticism and ridicule for the inclusion of a number of deeply personal anecdotes and revelations.
Speaking to Newseek's chief royal correspondent, Jack Royston, on The Royal Report, royal commentator and host of the Daily Fail podcast Kristen Meinzer said that Harry's strategy with certain disclosures in his book was to beat the tabloid media, with whom he has a strained relationship, at their own game.
"I think that his book was an attack on the tabloids," she said. "But it was also an attempt to air all of his own dirty laundry before the tabloids could."
"You know, PR 101 is get ahead of the story, right. Get your story out there with all of the details you can before somebody else tries to skew it and then just cover all the lies. So, you know, it was very much a strategic PR move."
On the public reaction to some of the prince's disclosures, which saw him lampooned on late-night shows and on social media, Meinzer added: "I don't think everybody quite grasped that that's what Harry was doing. He was doing PR 101 as a way to, hopefully, cut down on how much the tabloids would say about him that you know was not true."
Among the disclosures made by Harry that generated the most discussion was the revelation that he had used a lip cream favored by the late Princess Diana as a home remedy when he caught frostbite on his penis in 2011, following a trek to the North Pole.
Writing about his uncomfortable experience during the wedding ceremony of his brother, Prince William, Harry wrote: "My penis was oscillating between extremely sensitive and borderline traumatized. The last place I wanted to be was Frostnipistan."
He went on to explain that a friend suggested he try Elizabeth Arden cream as a remedy, but he hesitated because "my mum used that on her lips."
He said: "I found a tube, and the minute I opened it, the smell transported me through time. I felt as if my mother was right there in the room. Then I took a smidge and applied it...down there."
Following the publication of the memoir, Harry's frostbite was referenced in the opening monologues of numerous late-night talk show hosts, including Jimmy Kimmel, who based two skits on the story.
In reference to Meinzer's suggestion that Harry's airing of dirty laundry might have been an attempt to bypass the stories being broken by the tabloid press, Royston voiced skepticism over whether the frostbite lip cream incident was likely to be at risk of a tabloid splash over a decade later.
After the publication of Spare, Harry and wife Meghan Markle saw their popularity plummet in the U.S. and U.K., with recent polling for Newsweek showing that the pair have just begun to reclaim positive ground.
A survey conducted on May 17 by strategists Redfield & Wilton revealed that for the first time since December, Meghan's net approval rating was in positive figures with +5 percentage points.
Harry's popularity fares somewhat better in the U.S. than his wife's, with poll data setting him with a +15 net approval rating.
The prince's campaign to hold the tabloid media to account for intrusion and misrepresentation extends beyond settling scores in his memoir. He is suing the major tabloid publishers in Britain—Associated Newspapers Limited, News Group Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers—over historic allegations of illegal information gathering.
Harry is also in a libel legal dispute with Associated Newspapers Limited over a story published in the Mail on Sunday about his battle to pay for police bodyguards while in Britain.
The lawsuits are ongoing.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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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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