Prince Harry was experiencing a “catharsis” when he wrote his record-breaking memoir Savebut “hurt” a lot of the “people who loved him” and could potentially regret doing it, author Sally Bedell Smith said on a new episode of Newsweek‘s The Royal Report podcast.
Harry hasn’t shied away from speaking about royal life since stepping down from the monarchy alongside Meghan Markle in 2020 and has lobbed a number of bombshell allegations against his family in interviews, a six-part docuseries, podcast episodes and his memoir.
Bedell Smith, the author of the soon-to-be-released George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Shaped the Monarchy and an experienced royal biographer, shared her views on the prince’s exposure of the realities of royal life with Newsweek‘s chief royal correspondent, Jack Royston.
When asked what she thought about the deeply personal revelations made by Harry, Bedell Smith said: “Well, I wish he hadn’t. I really do.”
“Even though he was getting it out and having some kind of catharsis through that I think in the process he inflicted a lot of hurt on the people who loved him,” she said.
“There was a really interesting piece that Patty Davis wrote about in her memoir, in which she was very tough. She was the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and she was very, very tough on them and she wrote in this essay [saying] that she later lived to regret it, and she wondered if Harry might feel the same way because…he said very hurtful things.”
Davis wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times after Harry published Save that she felt the same justifications as the royal when writing her 1992 memoir The Way I See It. She later apologized to her father, the former president, for the book’s harsh depiction of her family and bringing up.
“My justification in writing a book I now wish I hadn’t written (and please, don’t go buy it; I’ve written many other books since) was very similar to what I understand to be Harry’s reasoning,” Davis wrote . “I wanted to tell the truth, I wanted to set the record straight. Naïvely, I thought if I put my own feelings and my own truth out there for the world to read, my family might also come to understand me better.
“Of course, people generally don’t respond well to being embarrassed and exposed in public. And in the ensuing years, I’ve learned something about truth: It’s way more complicated than it seems when we’re young. There isn’t just one truth, our truth—the other people who inhabit our story have their truths as well.”
Bedell Smith suggested that the outcomes of Harry publishing his book (except monetarily) could have been achieved through therapy.
“You know, I think he could have accomplished the same thing over a series of therapy sessions in the confidential confines of his therapist,” she said.
So far, no members of the royal family have publicly commented on Harry’s book or his recent media projects concerning royal life. King Charles and Prince William have both been asked about the book by journalists during royal engagements to which they gave no response.
For Harry’s part, he has said he is willing to sit down with his family to discuss his grievances. During an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby in January, the prince was asked whether he would return to the United Kingdom for his father’s coronation on May 6.
“There’s a lot that can happen between now and then,” Harry said. “But, you know, the door is always open. The ball is in their (his family’s) court. There’s a lot to be discussed and I really hope that they can, that they are willing to, sit down and talk about it, Because there’s a lot that’s happened in six years. And prior to that as well.”
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.
Prince Harry was experiencing a “catharsis” when he wrote his record-breaking memoir Savebut “hurt” a lot of the “people who loved him” and could potentially regret doing it, author Sally Bedell Smith said on a new episode of Newsweek‘s The Royal Report podcast.
