Radical idea: You could just choose not to read Prince Harry’s new book ‘Spare’

This image courtesy of CBS show Prince Harry, left, with host Stephen Colbert during a taping of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via AP)

Opinion:

In case you missed the 37 trillion articles about it, Prince Harry has released a memoir. But that’s not what I’m here to tell you. This column is about “what the internet is talking about” and this is, indeed, all the internet is talking about this week, so I guess I at least have an excuse to write about it. But what I’m actually here to tell you is that, if you don’t want to know anything more about the royal family or the Duke of Sussex’s frost-nipped “todger”, you can simply choose not to read the book.

Yeah, it really is as easy as that.

Over the past few weeks, the people unhappy about Prince Harry’s life choices have been particularly loud on the internet, very upset that he’d get himself both a Netflix and a book deal, as if they’d refuse the same offers if they were interesting enough people to receive them.

I worry about these people’s blood pressure and, for that reason, I come to them with some advice: If you are, for some reason, unhappy that Prince Harry wrote this book, you can just not read it. Truly, if the existence of this book bothers you, you can simply pretend it does not exist. There’s a bunch of great books out there, I promise you will not ever find yourself running out of reading material and having to pick up a copy of Spare. You are safe, it’s okay, there is really no need to get mad about it on the internet.

By the same token, if you want to read Prince Harry’s memoir, it is now available everywhere. You can even get it in audiobook form and have the man himself read it to you as you drift off to sleep.

Whatever you choose to do, he’s giving you that option. Unlike Bono and Apple back in the day (remember those simpler times?), Harry is not forcing you to have it. But he is giving those who want it the option to read about the inner workings of the royal family via someone who grew up in it - and judging by early sales figures, he wasn’t wrong in assuming there would be an appetite for it.

The truth is, we have all collectively grown up knowing far too much about this family. This isn’t a recent phenomenon, and it’s not even Prince Harry’s fault. Before him and his book there was Prince Andrew, there was Camilla and all the other scandals that have rocked the family, just within our lifetimes. They’ve just always been ... there. I don’t even know how I know so much about these people, I just do.

This week, however, with the release of Spare, it feels like we’ve reached peak royal fever, mostly because we are all so terminally online and suddenly feel like we need to have an opinion on it.

It’s easy to forget that we can choose to opt out of all this stuff. In the past few days, it has felt impossible to escape the frenzy. As the ginger Prince embarked on his book-marketing campaign, I sat in a Te Anau motel with no working WiFi, chewing through my mobile data to consume his interview with Anderson Cooper, followed by his chat with Stephen Colbert, before diving into reaction meme after reaction meme of all the salacious revelations in the book, before remembering that the planet is on fire and/or flooding and I don’t actually give a toss about whether these people get along or not.

Never in my 38 years on Earth did I once wish to possess the level of knowledge I now possess on Prince Harry or anyone in his family, yet here I find myself, with the image of him rubbing his late mum’s favourite lip cream on the tip of his penis. And I haven’t even read the book.

At least now the memoir is out. The act of picking up a book and reading it is a lot more intentional than being bombarded with memes about it while doomscrolling at 2.30am.

I have as much interest in Prince Harry’s life as he has in mine, but I do not deny him the right to speak for himself. In fact, I admire him for having the guts to spill it all out in such a spectacular manner. This is a man with no f**** left to give - and why would he? Haters are going to do the whole hating thing, as they do, but despite their cries of “he wanted out of the spotlight and now he’s banging on about it”, the truth is Harry’s problem was not the spotlight itself - but not having a choice to be under it in his own terms. After a lifetime of seeing stories about him told by others, he’s decided to tell his story himself.

In that sense, I do not understand how anyone who lived through the Diana years is even remotely surprised that it has all come to this or that Harry would want to opt out of that life. While this has all been treated as gossipy tabloid fodder, this is a pretty big moment for the British monarchy — and one that has been decades in the making.

Anyway, what was my point? That’s right - Harry has a new book out, which you can choose either to read or not read. Whatever choice you make on the matter will have approximately zero impact on your life.

Meanwhile, have you seen the price of eggs?