The day after the last excerpts from his memoirs to be published, the tabloids are unleashed against the expatriate prince.
New skirmish between Prince Harry and the British press. The recent revelations of the Duke of Sussex, extracted from interviews to be published and his memoirs expected for January 10, ignite this Friday the English newspapers which reveal vitriolic front pages.
“A reconciliation? But you sold your soul, Harry,” reads roughly the cover of the Daily Express, dressed in a picture of Harry and his brother William. Meghan Markle’s husband actually expressed his desire to “reconnect” with his family on Monday, in an excerpt from an interview that will air on CNN on Sunday. But this call for appeasement was followed, all week, by explosive statements from the man who left the monarchy to settle in California.
The good leaves of Substitute (published by Fayard in France), his memoirs expected on January 10, have been published by several media in recent days. We learn in particular that a violent argument exploded between William and Harry about Meghan, during which the Prince of Wales would have “thrown” his younger brother to the ground.
the DailyMirror offers a judgment similar to that of the Daily Express: “It’s all over”, says the tabloid with a front page illustrated with a photo of Harry and William as children, side by side in their school uniforms.
Defloration and cocaine
In new excerpts from his book released on Thursday, Harry shoots the entire royal family at point-blank range. About the photos of him dressed as a Nazi officer, which had caused a scandal when he was 20 years old, he assures that William and Kate had encouraged him to choose this costume. He also recounts how he learned of the death of his mother, Lady Diana, how he objected to his father remarrying Camilla – whom he perceived as an ‘ugly stepmother’ – claims to have killed 25 Taliban when he was engaged as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, details his own deflowering and confides having tested cocaine.
It is on this point that the tabloid The Sun makes its one. “Harry: I took coke and weed,” reads the headline on the front page of this Friday’s edition, adorned with a paparazzi photo of a toddler Harry. And to evoke the other revelations of the week: “He gets drunk and loses his virginity at the back of a pub”, “His fight with Wills and the confrontation of Meg and Kate”, “The furious army of his revelations about the 25 dead Taliban”. And to ensure that in the face of all his statements, “the palace is plunged into a crisis”.
“The Baby Man”
More sober, the Daily Telegraph headlines about Harry’s reservations about his mother-in-law “Please don’t marry Camilla”, headlines the daily. Without forgetting, at the bottom of the page, to mention the autes revelations of the prince. We learn that Meghan believes that Kate has “a baby brain”, or that Harry used a medium to get in touch with his mother. For the newspaper, Harry’s memoir “exceeds the palace’s worst fears”.
Visibly tired of Harry’s constant revelations, the DailyMail begs him: “Oh, spare us!” asks the newspaper, signing a play on words with the title of his book (Spare, in VO). And to call him “a baby-man” who “definitely threw his toys out of the royal pram”.
The British press has probably not finished devoting its front pages to the expatriate prince. After being unveiled in dribs and drabs all week, his two event interviews (one for CNN in the United States, the other for ITV in the United Kingdom) will be broadcast on Sunday. And the still unpublished pages of Substitute undoubtedly reserve new surprises…
