Sarah Ivens: Prince Harry book Spare - ‘confessional tour’ leaves some Americans bored

There are signs that many are becoming bored of the Sussexes' moaning. Photo / PA via AP

OPINION:

I was on my way out of the coffee shop when I realised I was being followed. “I’m sorry,” the woman said, in a hushed drawl, reaching out her hand and looking into my eyes. “I am so sorry that one of my country women has dragged your royal family into all this drama.”

I’ve lived in the US for nearly two decades now - the past 10 years in the South, first Kentucky and now Texas - and have learnt to factor in an extra few minutes to any errand to allow strangers to pay me compliments on my London twang. Now - because of Harry, Relentless Harry, the American media star and self-proclaimed truth teller - I’m having to allow more time.

“I know it’s just not your country’s way - to talk about family secrets like this,” the woman said, the morning after Anderson Cooper’s 60 Minutes interview had aired. “Calling your stepmom a villain, talking about your brother being bald. Me and the ladies in my book club feel so bad for your people.”

“I just feel like the Queen must be spinning in her grave,” said another, as I was cornered at a 50th party last weekend by the birthday boy’s mother. “I feel bad for those royal children who are now going to grow up without their cousins, aunts, grandparents. I think Harry is very short-sighted to choose Netflix money over family. Do you agree?” I agreed, but shared my concern that we were in the minority in her country. The show had the highest documentary premiere ratings in the streaming giant’s history.

After the Oprah with Harry and Meghan sit-down, Americans seemed to be drinking the Kool-Aid served up by the Sussexes. Friends from across the country were asking if the royal family were racist. Many were perplexed by the fact Harry and Meghan were having a hard time, while at the same time Prince Andrew wasn’t taking up nearly as many negative column inches.

Prince Harry’s new memoir Spare went on sale this week in New Zealand. Photo / AP

I am aware in these moments that I am not being asked for my truth, to borrow an oft-used phrase from recent times, but I am a representation of all Britons’ reactions to the Harry hullabaloo.

“We never liked Andrew, we never expected anything of him,” I remember explaining a lot. “Every Briton knew he was unsavoury and unnecessary before all the Epstein horror. Whereas we loved Harry and felt invested in his happiness. Now we feel rejected on a national level. We wanted him to love us, but he left. The Oprah interview painted the UK as the fusty old wife, who stifled him, while America as the sexy, young girlfriend who he felt finally understood by. We’re collectively hurting.”

Things blew over after Oprah - until the past few weeks, which has brought us the aforementioned Netflix series, Harry’s book, and all the cringe-worthy interviews promoting his book on US television.

“Your press is so horrible to Meghan,” pinged to my phone a few times over the Christmas break, when friends sat down to watch Harry & Meghan. Their biggest takeaway seemed to be how unruly and amoral the British media is, a laughable notion compared to US media, but a story told and swallowed nonetheless.

In the Harry & Meghan Netflix series, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex blamed the British press for their exit from the royal family. Photo / Netflix

Last week, when Dog Bowl-gate leaked and chat show host Jimmy Kimmel did a sketch ridiculing the two princes that got shared across social media, the whole sorry saga read as much more comic than tragic to Americans.

One friend texted me immediately, after confessing she’d downloaded a sample of Spare to her Audible account. “Don’t you want William to speak out? An American would speak out if their brother told mean stories about his wife or his dad,” she said.

But she was the only one. Despite the massive promotional activity, there are signs that many here are becoming as bored of the moaning as those across the Atlantic. The New York Times ran a piece asking: “Has Prince Harry’s Confessional Tour Run Its Course?”

Prince Harry on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via AP)

In my opinion, Americans were never as invested in the outcome of any royal fallout as us Brits. The majority don’t really care and feel Harry Windsor is very much the least interesting on the current list of British Harrys - Styles, Potter and even, since the World Cup, Kane are more deserving of air time.

Harry’s latest interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he toasted America with tequila, didn’t seem to resonate with my friends and neighbours. The Texans I know seem to be more focused on shut-eye than a Sussex skit with Tom Hanks. A healthy choice we should all be making perhaps? Harry has disrupted too much of our sleep already.