(London) Prince Harry’s memoirs have not yet been published but already promise their share of attacks: he accuses his brother William, heir to the British crown, of having thrown him to the ground in 2019, according to first excerpts that leaked to the press.
A month after the broadcast of the thundering Netflix documentary on Harry and his wife Meghan, the British monarchy is preparing for new revelations about the sensational departure of the couple in 2020 for California with the publication on January 10 of the book The Alternate.
According to excerpts released Thursday by the British daily The Guardianthe Duke of Sussex notably accuses his brother William of having thrown him to the ground during an argument in 2019 concerning Meghan, whom Harry had married the previous year.
During this altercation, William would have called Meghan a “difficult” and “rude” woman, before the tone rose between the two brothers and insults burst out, according to the Guardian.
William “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my collar off, and knocked me to the ground,” Harry would relate. “I landed on the dog’s bowl, which broke under my back, the pieces cutting into me,” added the prince, saying he remained on the ground “dazed” before asking his brother to leave.
William would then “apologize” while asking his brother not to talk about the altercation with Meghan, which Harry would have ended up doing anyway, recounting that she “wasn’t that surprised or angry” , but “terribly sad”.
Buckingham Palace has remained silent on this information, as on all the accusations made in the Netflix docuseries.
” Mission accomplished ”
The flamboyant marriage in May 2018 between Prince Harry, now 38, and Meghan, a divorced mixed-race American actress, seemed to give the royal family a facelift. It quickly turned to family warfare and media harassment, pushing the “Sussexes” to leave the monarchy with a bang in 2020.
The couple, who now live in the United States, have since publicly criticized the royal family, notably in an interview in 2021 where they accused the “Firm”, its pejorative nickname, of racism. Since then the two brothers have been openly cold, only appearing together on extremely rare occasions when they barely speak to each other.
Ahead of the release of his memoir, the prince gave two interviews, one to British channel ITV and the other to CBS in the United States, which are due to air on Sunday.
“They have shown absolutely no desire to reconcile”, declares the Duke of Sussex in a short trailer broadcast Monday by ITV, without it being known who he means precisely, but where he says he wants to “reconnect” with his brother and his father.
Relations seem far from calm, however, especially after the broadcast in December of a six-hour documentary series on Netflix where Harry was already targeting his brother, saying that he had “screamed” at him during a family reunion in 2020 in the presence of Elizabeth II.
These accusations have only reinforced the unpopularity of the Sussexes in the United Kingdom, where much of the press describes them as spoiled children.
According to Guardian, Harry evokes throughout his memoirs the difficulty of being “the substitute”. He says in particular that on the day of his birth, his father Charles would have said to his mother Diana: “Magnificent! From now on you have given me an heir and a substitute – mission accomplished”.
These criticisms come at a time of transition for the British royal family after the accession to the throne of Charles III, following the death of Elizabeth II on September 8 at the age of 96. The ruler of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth states is due to be crowned on May 6, a grand event broadcast around the world.
Will Harry be there? In a new trailer released on Thursday by ITV, the prince reckons he ‘doesn’t yet know’ if he will go there if invited, believing ‘a lot could happen from here the “.