My author friend tells me that picking the title of an autobiography is the worst part of the publishing process.
You spend months pondering the right word or phrase, a title that captures your very essence. Then the editors decide they want something more pithy – more dramatic, controversial and sellable.
But I get the feeling there was no such conflict between the Duke of Sussex and Penguin Random House. Because the title of Harry’s long-awaited memoir sums up the petulant, paranoid Prince perfectly. And the publishers know that the controversial cover will make him, and them, a fortune.
Spare is a provocative reference to Harry’s status as the second son of a future monarch.
William’s the heir, so he’s the spare, and as a kid he clearly thought he’d got the better gig.
All the privilege, none of the burden. If he ever got ticked off, Harry would joke: “I’m the spare, I don’t have to behave, I can do what I like.”
And he did. Booze, drugs, girls, Vegas pool parties, dodgy fancy-dress…cheeky Harry got away with it all.
In fact we relished the sight of him living it up…moving on from the tragedy of his mother’s death when he was only 12. We watched him become a soldier, serve on the front line, set up his charities and found the Invictus Games. And we thought he’d found his happy ever after when he married Meghan and became a doting father.
But somewhere along the line Harry changed his mind about being the spare. It no longer represented freedom and opportunity. It simply meant his elder brother was the star and he was the support act. And with an ambitious actress wife on his arm, that was never going to be enough.
Spare now meant second best, underdog, redundant, victim – and his family were the cause of all the misery.
So he and Meghan stepped out of the royal spotlight to fill their spare time plotting his revenge.
On January 10 he will finally get it with the publication of a “raw, unflinching and honest” autobiography packed with enough bombshells to earn him an estimated £36million.
Prince Harry is still doing exactly what he likes. And I doubt he will ever spare us his incessant, self-indulgent whingeing.
