Not too far into Spare, Prince Harry’s blockbuster, headline-grabbing, instantly best-selling memoir, the author brings up his brother’s “alarming baldness.” It’s one of the more petty lines in a book largely filled with genuine emotion (the chapters in which Harry discusses his mother’s death, and the aftermath of his grief, are often devastating) and striking revelations (such as when Harry estimates he killed 25 Taliban fighters while deployed as a soldier). It’s especially petty considering that Harry follows up his aside by pointing out that William’s baldness is “more advanced than mine.”
“I don’t see it as cutting at all,” Harry told TV host Anderson Cooper about the passage, in a 60 Minutes interview that aired shortly before the release of Spare. “You know, my brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years. None of anything I’ve written, anything that I’ve included is ever intended to hurt my family.”
