‘Spare’. What our readers say about the memoir that shook the start of 2023

In his new memoir, ‘Spare’ Prince Harry tells his story, raising mixed responses from the public.

By Alia Mcdonald.

As of now, Harry is the 9th most popular member of the Royal Family (yougov.com) – although this was not always the case.

After his grandmother, Harry was the popular member of the Royal Family – his gregarious nature to others left a lasting impression on people he interacted with.

‘He’s just like Diana’ is a popular phrase to describe the Duke of Sussex – so what has changed?

Prince Harry has said he made public his rifts with the British royal family and taken on the press to try to help the monarchy and change the media, the latter described by his father King Charles as a "suicide mission".

In his much-publicised interviews, the duke said he had fled Britain with his family for California in 2020 "fearing for our lives" and said he no longer recognised his father or his elder brother Prince William, the heir to the throne.

Commentators say the book has plunged the monarchy into its biggest crisis since the days of the royal soap opera in the 1990s around the break-up of Charles' marriage to his late first wife Princess Diana, the mother of William and Harry.

To find out, I carried out a survey of people’s opinions on Harry and his new memoir.

In my survey, 66.7% of people’s opinions towards Prince Harry have changed since the promotion of Spare.

One person said: “For me, he now appears less like a spoilt royal making a scene and more like a victim and someone who has suffered for so long.”

“The way he spoke about his military experience was very narrow minded and very out of touch. He murdered civilians, acknowledged that’s what they were trained to do and more. Yet there was no remorse.” said another.

However, a third of people didn’t have a change of heart towards him since the promotion of Spare.

I then took my research to Twitter.

63.6% of Twitter users agree that Harry did the right thing by telling his side of the story, however, 54.5% of users believed that Harry did not go about the right way when talking about issues in his family.

To dig deeper, I wanted to get people’s opinions of the Royal Family, in general.

100% of people said that they weren’t fond of the Royal Family in my survey.

One of the responses said: “I was brought up to be but as I’ve grown up, I understand how old fashioned and toxic it is, and it is just based on popularity. I do think they do good things, but it is just very outdated.”

Another said: “They are living off taxpayers’ money when they don’t truly have any political power. What’s the point of having a monarchy? The state of the country is disgusting especially during the current cost of living crisis, the Royal Family are just free loaders at this point. Also [we] can’t forget their colonial past!”

Discourse about Harry wouldn’t be complete without his wife, Meghan Markle.

66.7% of my responses claimed themselves as a fan of the Duchess of Sussex.

One responder said: “I do not think she should be blamed for anything; Harry’s his own person and she hasn’t done anything wrong. She just married who she loved.”

Another responder said: “She can literally pass as an Italian woman, yet the racism towards her just because it’s known that she is Black is abhorrent. She hasn’t done anything to warrant this behaviour and does not deserve unjustified hate.”

Spare has sold more than 1,430,000 million units in all formats and editions in the United States, Canada and the U.K.