JR Moehringer penned Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, but tensions led the author to even yell at the royal dropout.
Montecito – With his biography “Spare” (German: “Reserve”) caused Prince Harry (38) Not only made headlines worldwide at the beginning of the year, but also delivered an absolute bestseller that sold millions of copies. The man behind “Spare” is the journalist and author JR Moehringer (58), who acted as a ghostwriter. Moehringer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, published successful novels such as “Tender Bar” and was also a ghostwriter of “Open”, the memoirs of tennis legend Andre Agassi (53). However, working with Prince Harry pushed him to his limits.
Prince Harry and JR Moehringer had a falling out while working on Spare
When JR Moehringer was working with Prince Harry on “Spare,” things turned sour at one point, and heated arguments ensued. “I was annoyed with Prince Harry,” Moehringer admits in an article he wrote for US magazine The New Yorker wrote. “My head was pounding, my jaw was clenched and I started screaming at him.” Even in the middle of the argument, Moehringer was aware of how absurd the situation was. “This is so strange. I’m yelling at Prince Harry.” Daily Mail from the article.
The situation got so bad that the author even feared that the collaboration on “Spare” could fail completely. “Then, as Harry started yelling back, as his cheeks flushed and his eyes narrowed, a thought struck me, ‘Wait, it could end up right here.'”
While it wasn’t the first time Harry and I had fought, it felt different, it felt like we were speeding towards some sort of crucial break.
“The memoirs are not about you”: Ghostwriter had to teach Prince Harry
The reason for the dispute was a section in “Spare” that dealt with an exercise during Harry’s military service in which the Duke of Sussex was to be captured by alleged attackers. Prince Harry is said to have been verbally abused, the incident culminating in a nasty insult to Harry’s mother Diana (36, † 1997). “Harry always wanted to end this scene with something he said to his captors, a counter I felt unnecessary and kind of silly.”revealed Moehringer in The New Yorker. He repeatedly emphasized Harry’s counterattack, but Prince Harry insisted on the sentence, which ultimately led to an argument.
Eventually, Harry explained to him that he really wanted the phrase in his book, to rebut his critics, who “had belittled his intellectual abilities all his life.” However, veteran author JR Moehringer was finally able to convey to Prince Harry that his clever counterattack would not make the book a better memoir.
“I told him everything you just said is about you. You want the world to know that you did a good job, that you are smart. But strange as that may sound, the memoir isn’t about you.”, so the explanation of the ghostwriter. In order to elicit the greatest possible response from most people, the sentence was simply superfluous, which Harry finally accepted. All information, pictures and updates about Prince Harry at the coronation of Charles III. can be read in the live ticker. Sources used: dailymail.co.uk, newyorker.com
