As a passive republican, I’ve tried to steer pointedly clear of most of the royal infighting percolating around PrinceHarry’s forthcoming memoir, Spare. Muting trigger words on socials, selectively browsing news channels, I’ve missed the onslaught of Oprah interviews, Netflix docs, 4,000-word New York magazine profiles, Anderson Cooper and Tom Bradby exclusives and even the public shaming of Jeremy Clarkson. I thought I’d managed to body-swerve the whole marketing muscle around the new royal gossip-in-chief.
Then human interest finally got the better of me. Yesterday, like one of his big brother’s one-two hooks, our baby Prince caught me quite off guard following the leak of the details of a minor physical infraction he’d had with William in one of their multiple palatial homes — I forget which. OK, now I’m in. As the youngest of three siblings, I am very much in the market for a fraternal scrap. It’s a narrative you understand implicitly if you’ve ever behaved in the manner of a nightmare little brother yourself. I feel it’s best to leave it to my own elder siblings to fill in the finer points of those sagas.
