Daniela Elser: Prince Harry’s colossal mistake in his big TV interview

By Daniela Elser

news.com.au·

9 Jan, 2023 03:57 AM7 mins to read

Prince Harry speaking during an interview with ITV's Tom Bradby for the programme Harry: The Interview. Photo / PA via AP

OPINION:

No one has ever accused Prince Harry – author of the world’s most talked-about book, the antagonistically titled Spare – of being a secret smartypants, a man troubled by a burdensome IQ or one who does the New York Times crossword in pen. But if ever there was any proof that he’s a bit of a ding dong, then look no further.

Despite having spent years railing against the media, the Duke is a man with a book to sell, which is why this week you will not be able to escape him, having agreed to a series of TV interviews to spruik his tell-all.

Things kicked off on Monday with him speaking to ITV’s Tom Bradby, something only worth sitting through if sheer necessity demands it or you have masochistic tendencies.

It was an excruciating watch, a good 90 minutes of the royal looking red-faced and constipated at Bradby’s refusal to wholesale buy his tired arguments and him rolling out a series of bananas lines like his saying he “hoped” that a “reconciliation between my family and us will have a ripple effect across the entire world”. (Who’s been letting him read Rainbow Bright I wonder?)

But in unleashing this media blitzkrieg and in putting out Spare, Aitch might have just done something very, very shortsighted and unwittingly opened Pandora’s box.

With Spare and the ensuing PR campaign, the 38-year-old has, according to an expert, dealt a serious blow to his chances of enjoying anything even remotely close to privacy in the future.

Ever since the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly got his hands on a copy of Spare last week, followed by some Spanish booksellers merrily putting the title on sale days early, we have been buffeted by a deluge of embarrassing, deeply personal and cringe-worthy revelations including that William knocked Harry down during an altercation in 2019 in the most famous incident involving a dog bowl in modern history; his callous admission he had killed 25 people while fighting in Afghanistan; and that he lost his virginity in a field behind a pub.

Prince Harry speaks during an interview with ITV's Tom Bradby for the programme Harry: The Interview. Photo / PA via AP

While Kiwis and Australians will have to wait until Wednesday to officially get hold of a copy of the book, it is clearly one that has dug enough skeletons out of the royal family’s closet to populate Highgate cemetery.

And therein lies the problem. Not that he has betrayed his loved ones by revealing the most personal of conversations, not that he has crossed the most serious of lines by dragging his family’s mess horribly public and not that it looks like he is now trading royal confidences for a big, fat payday, but that in putting out Spare he has undermined his own quest for future privacy.

According to the editor of the UK’s Press Gazette, Harry’s decision to publish this book means he will have to “wave goodbye” to his chances of being left alone by snappers and journalists.

The Gazette’s Dominic Ponsford writes: “One of the big factors judges take into account when assessing privacy claims is the extent to which claimants have put matters into the public domain themselves.”

One former tabloid executive has said: “You can’t write about losing your virginity and in the next breath complain about lack of privacy. Suspect a) paps will now be a regular fixture again wherever he goes, and b) UK picture desks will start buying and publishing, safe in the knowledge he won’t be able to claim privacy.”

Oh irony of ironies …

Here we have a man and his wife who have launched a series of high-profile legal cases against the media and yet who has now potentially opened the floodgates for an even greater level of intrusion.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry meet members of the public at Windsor Castle, following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Photo / AP

So let’s start with the pap part of this mess because, as it is, photos of Harry and Meghan “off-duty” (are they ever really “on” these days?) now regularly appear in the tabloids.

Speaking to Bradby, Harry insisted, “I’m very, very happy; I’m very at peace,” however that assertion defies the level of intrusion they now face in the US.

For one thing, in the UK, they lived on the Windsor estate which is ringed by official security, affording the family a much higher ability to live unmolested by long lenses. That is why the world has never seen an aerial shot of Frogmore Cottage – yet by contrast, there are countless images of their $20 million-plus Californian home out there. (In 2020, they took legal action against one paparazzi agency for flying a drone over the Los Angeles house they were then living in.)

For another, there is an agreement between the press and the palace over photos of royal children, in that they won’t buy or publish any shots of the little HRHs taken unawares, for example, at the park or out shopping with Kate.

In an interview that Meghan did with The Cut last year, journalist Allison P. Davis wrote that the former Suits actress had discussed her fears over photos being taken of Archie.

“[She] remarked upon how, if Archie were in school in the UK, she’d never be able to do school pick-up and drop-off without it being a royal photo call with a press pen of 40 people snapping pictures.

“‘Sorry, I have a problem with that. That doesn’t make me obsessed with privacy. That makes me a strong and good parent protecting my child.’”

Prince Harry's memoir was released early in Spain. Photo / AP

However, there are no photos that have ever emerged of Archie taken in the UK by the paps – only of her carrying her son from preschool in the US.

Last Friday, as the world’s press feasted over the revelations in Spare, Harry was snapped looking suitably thunderous while out walking the Sussexes’ labrador Pula in the bucketing rain.

This now joins the series of other photos of him doing such extraordinary things as hiking, riding his bike and ambling along the beach; the couple getting on and off private jets in the US on a number of occasions; the duo leaving an appointment in Los Angeles; him playing polo and her watching from the sidelines; her shopping on at least two occasions; them visiting neighbour Oprah Winfrey; and them dining on occasion, including with his cousin Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank, and with singer Katharine McPhee and her husband David Foster.

Heck, US celebrity website TMZ has even run photos of the Sussexes’ dog walker exercising one of their pups.

At the end of the day, if Harry and Meghan have been targets for the paparazzi thus far then Spare may only end up making this situation exponentially worse.

Then there is the second part here, that in putting out this autobiography, the case could be made that Harry has basically breached his own privacy.

It’s an argument echoed by the chairman of UK’s Independent Press Standards Organisation Lord Faulks during an interview with the BBC last week, with him saying that if someone is “prepared to discuss [their private life] then it is not unreasonable for the press to write about it and to say to some extent they have brought an invasion of privacy on themselves”.

Could the Duke even find himself on the wrong end of some sort of complaint? While it seems highly unlikely, Ponsford writing in the Gazette, said, “It will be interesting to see whether he himself is subject to a privacy action,” and that a case from 2006 “showed that those in close family relationships owe a duty of confidence to each other”.

What might the consequences of this look like?

There only seems to be one likelihood to come out of this week’s slow-motion strategic car crash – the world is about to get a whole lot more photos of Harry and his trademark grimace out hiking. And their dog walker might want to think about getting himself an agent.