PRINCE Harry and Meghan Markle demanding privacy is “farcical” as they do “nothing but put themselves in the public eye”, a royal insider has claimed.
Harry, 36, announced his upcoming memoir yesterday – which is set to make explosive revelations about his life growing up in the Royal Family, his relationship with wife Meghan, 39, and leaving the Firm during Megxit.
Royal expert Phil Dampier said the couple’s demands for privacy while at the same time promoting projects revealing intimate information about their lives were “ludicrous”.
He told HOAR Online: “It is one of the great ironies of Harry and Meghan’s departure that they said one of the reasons they wanted to go was to have some privacy and get away from the prying eyes of the press and public, and seemingly since then they’ve done nothing but put themselves in the public eye.
“It’s just reaching farcical proportions.
“They said they didn’t cooperate with Finding Freedom, the book that Omid Scobie wrote, and then later on it emerged that they had had some input into it.
“We’ve had the Oprah Winfrey interview, we’ve had the James Corden interview, we’ve had various other interviews and podcasts, and now the book.
“It is just ludicrous to suggest that they want to have a private life. Because if they did they wouldn’t be drawing attention to themselves.”
Despite Harry saying he will donate the proceeds from his book to charity, Mr Dampier said he believed the couple were planning more lucrative deals – following on the heels of their multi-million pound deals with Netflix and Spotify.
He said: “Although Harry’s giving the money for this one to charity, obviously a lot of the other things he and Meghan have been doing have been money-making exercises.
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“It just makes you wonder what’s coming next.
“Who knows, Meghan will probably write her memoir as well. She’s already tried to cash in with her children’s book – we were never told the money from that, The Bench, was going to charity – so there is definitely still that option for her to do a book.”
Mr Dampier also said the Queen, Charles and William would be “in despair” over Prince Harry’s memoir announcement, and that the duke is being “disrespectful” to his grandmother by releasing his memoir in her Platinum Jubilee year.
In a statement from his £11million mansion in Montecito, California, Harry, 36, said he was writing the book “not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become”.
He continued: “I’ve worn many hats over the years, both literally and figuratively, and my hope is that in telling my story – the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned – I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think.
“I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned over the course of my life so far and excited for people to read a first-hand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful.”
The duke signed with publisher Penguin Random House and will be donating any fee to charity after making tens of millions of dollars with Netflix and Spotify.
The publisher said it was an “honest” and “intimate” autobiography – sparking fears of more revelations after his Oprah interview with Meghan accused the Royal Family of racism.
The explosive televised chat sent shockwaves through the Palace and made the existing rift between Harry and his brother and father even deeper.
Now Mr Dampier, who has been writing about the royal family for 30 years, thinks their fractured relationship will worsen still thanks to Harry’s decision to publish a first-hand account of his privileged life.
“This book is not going to make the rift any better,” he said.
“Clearly it is as bad as ever. If he was healing the rift with his family, particularly his brother, he wouldn’t be coming out with this book, which is clearly going to cause more hurt.”
HOAR Online has contacted the Sussex’s representatives for comment.
