Britain’s Prince Harry has defended his autobiography Spare, saying he had no regrets about publishing it more than two years ago, even though it caused tensions within the British royal family.“I don’t believe that I aired my dirty laundry in public,” British King Charles III’s younger son told the Guardian in an interview.“It was a difficult message, but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear,” he said.The book, released in January 2023, gave a detailed account of his life as a prince and of the royal family. It sold in large numbers but drew criticism from Buckingham Palace for his remarks about family members, including his brother’s wife Catherine and his stepmother Camilla.
The book further strained Harry’s ties with the royal family. He had stepped down from royal duties in 2020 and moved to California with his wife, Meghan.Before meeting Charles on Wednesday in an unannounced visit, Harry had not seen his father for 19 months. Their last meeting was in February 2024, when Harry travelled to the UK after Charles revealed his cancer diagnosis. The king is still under treatment.Harry, who continues to hold the title Duke of Sussex, said Spare was “not about revenge”. “The book? It was a series of corrections to stories already out there. One point of view had been put out and it needed to be corrected.”Harry had earlier said he hopes for “reconciliation” with his father, as he “did not know how much longer my father has”.“It is about accountability,” he told the Guardian in Kyiv, which he visited on Friday for charitable reasons.“I know that (speaking out) annoys some people and it goes against the narrative,” he said. This was the second time Harry had visited Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. He made a trip to the western city of Lviv in April.“We cannot stop the war but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process,” Harry told the Guardian newspaper while on an overnight train to Kyiv.Harry, a British Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, is the founder of the Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style event designed to inspire military veterans around the world as they work to overcome battlefield injuries. Ukraine is bidding to host the games in 2029.
