Aside from reports that the royals were displeased with Harry’s book, Spare was officially met with a wall of silence from the palace.
However, Harry insisted in multiple interviews that this wasn’t him attempting to damage his relationship with his family, but rather to clear all the cobwebs and air the dirty laundry so they could perhaps truly see what he had been experiencing all those years. As he described, his angst and unaddressed trauma extended back decades, long before Meghan entered the picture.
“I’m not sure how honesty is burning bridges,” he told ITV’s Bradby in a January 8 interview. “You know, silence only allows the abuser to abuse. Right? So I don’t know how staying silent is ever going to make things better.”
And “though I would like to have reconciliation,” he continued, “I would like accountability. I’ve managed to make peace over this time with many things that have happened. But that doesn’t mean that I’m just going to let it go.”
Still, Harry noted that he wanted to be able to forgive and be forgiven. “I would like to get my father back,” he said. “I would like to have my brother back. At the moment, I don’t recognize them, as much as they probably don’t recognize me.”
He loved his family and always would, he emphasized. “Nothing of what I’ve done in this book or otherwise,” he said, “has ever been [with] any intention to harm them or hurt them.”
