Harry’s diatribes have left Sarah-Kate royally riled.
For someone who basically mouths off for a living, I’m actually quite good at biting my tongue.
But I have tooth fatigue from holding off on the subject of Prince Harry. So, at the risk of ruffling feathers, especially as he’s now an adoring new papa to lovely Lilibet (or indeed because of that), it’s time I said my piece, which amounts to five words: Shut your pie hole, Hazza.
God knows I’m partial to a ginger, and Harry deserves all the love and sympathy in the world for the trauma of losing his famous mother in such a horrific manner. His resulting battle with mental health is real and serious, and all power to his arm for harnessing his fame to highlight that cause.
But he lost me when he started airing the family’s dirty laundry in public. So, his father cut him off financially. With all the millions of dollars he’s making in America, why does he care? Isn’t that what he wanted? To operate outside the structure of a family business he found too restrictive? He’s not the only one in that boat, I’m sure. But did his search for independence and authenticity really have to include throwing his father and grandmother under a bus quite so spectacularly?
I was feeling quite forgiving up until his Oprah interview. Okay, “quite” might be a stretch. More accurately, I was feeling like he was a spoiled brat with a pushy wife who was crossing the Atlantic for a quiet life, and it seemed to be done in haste and a bit rudely, but – all things considered – good luck to him.
My forgiveness cupboard has since been emptied and I’ve now had to move Harry to my grudge pantry – and I may even have to put Oprah in there with him. Harry’s constant spray of “truth bombs”, in my opinion, shows a lack of the very empathy he says he’s been denied by the royal family. His royal family.
My forgiveness cupboard has since been emptied and I’ve now had to move Harry to my grudge pantry – and I may even have to put Oprah in there with him
I’m crossing my fingers that if he keeps putting all those piles of lovely green dollar bills where his mouth is, in time his good works will prove him to be a chip off the Queen’s block – if not in grace and dignity, then at least in service to the greater good.
In the meantime, I hope someone close to him suggests he stop dumping on his dad, granny, brother and the family who no doubt love him to bits, despite his recent inelegant whine-fest. We all know clans who have had fall-outs – it comes with the territory – but even if we could, I doubt we’d choose to play out our own painful fractures to an audience of millions. Of course, I may be wrong about that – but that’s what reality TV is for.
My hope is that Harry closes down production on Househusbands of Montecito, gets on with spreading the aroha and shining a light on mental health issues, and quietly makes it up with Charles, Wills and the Queen. Yes, in some ways he’s still the 12-year-old boy who walked behind his mother’s coffin in front of the world, but he’s far from the only child to lose a parent.
And don’t go thinking my thought bubble is saying, “Suck it up, sunshine”, because it isn’t. I acknowledge his pain, I admire his attempts to address it and wish him well as he continues to do so – but he is no longer 12. He is a grown man, a husband, a father and beyond privileged. If he seriously wants to get real, now is the time.
