Prince Harry’s ghostwriter JR Moehringer defends Spare’s inaccuracies

The ghostwriter of Prince Harry today defended Spare from damaging claims of inaccuracy and historical error, insisting that “inadvertent errors” are common in memoirs where “the line between memory and fact is blurred.”

JR Moehringer, who is also the author of autobiographies for Andre Agassi and Nike co-founder Phil Knight, has come to the defense of the book for which he was allegedly paid $1 million.

Sharing an excerpt from Harry’s book, emphasizing that the exiled prince himself admits that he has sometimes said he was unsure of all the details he shares, often blaming childhood trauma.

But in the same book he also insists: ‘It’s important that history be right.’

Moehringer tweeted Harry’s words last night: “Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory… there is as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there are so-called objective facts.” He also tweeted a quote from Mary Karr, author of The Art of Memoir, which read: “The line between memory and fact is blurred, between interpretation and fact. There are inadvertent errors of this type out of the ordinary.

Harry has been accused of a litany of factual errors, including claims that he was descended from King Henry VI, that his mother gave him an XBox before they were made, and that Meghan Markle’s father was bought a plane ticket between Mexico and London. on Air New Zealand, which does not fly that route.

And more errors surfaced today, including his recollection of the Queen Mother’s funeral, an anecdote criticizing his stepmother Camilla, and British street giant TK Maxx even corrected another claim in the bombshell book detailing purchases from the shop next door to the Palace. from Kensington with £200 buy as much as he could in 15 minutes.

JR Moehringer is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for Feature Writing, before turning to ghostwriting. Spare is the best-selling non-fiction book in UK history, according to Penguin.

A week after Spare was released in Spain, the journalist and author has defended Harry from claims that it is inaccurate.

He took to Twitter to share various defenses.

Another quote from Mary Karr, she tweeted, read: “Neurologist Jonathan Mink, MD, explained to me that with memories as vivid as David’s, we often register only emotion, all details blurred in an unreadable blur.”

The duke claimed that his aunt, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, gave him an Xbox for his 13th birthday in 1997, despite the fact that the best-selling device was first released in the United States four years later, in 2001.

He writes: ‘I tore the wrapping paper, the ribbon. I looked inside… It was an Xbox. I was pleased. I loved video games.

‘That’s the story, anyway. It has appeared in many accounts of my life, as gospel, and I have no idea if it is true. Dad said mom hurt her head, but maybe I was the one with the brain damage?

Moehringer, in response to the criticism, retweeted a commenter who said: “It is worth noting that IN THE BOOK when Harry talks about the XBox (which had not yet been released in 1997) he explicitly states that he has no idea if this memory in particular is true and explains that his mother’s death ruined his memories.

Moehringer also retweeted a commenter saying: ‘Right there he says he doesn’t know if it’s true. Read it again.’

The New York-born author noted that Harry himself admitted that his memories were sometimes hazy.

“Landscape, geography, architecture, that’s how my memory rolls,” said Harry.

‘Dates? Sorry, I’ll have to look them up.

‘Dialogue? I’ll do my best, but I won’t make any verbatim claims, especially when it comes to the 1990s.

Several of the specific claims that Moehringer does not address.

Harry wrote that Meghan bought a first-class ticket from Mexico to Britain for Thomas Markle so he could escape concerns about bullying in his adopted homeland.

That ticket was with Air New Zealand, the Duke of Sussex claimed.

“We told him, get out of Mexico right now: a new level of bullying is about to befall you, so come to Britain. Now,’ revealed an excerpt from Spare.

‘Air New Zealand, first class, booked and paid for by Meg.’

Air New Zealand has said that it has never operated flights between Mexico and the UK, and that it does not offer first-class service.

“We have never had flights between Mexico and the UK. And we only have Business Premier,’ an Air NZ spokesperson told the New Zealand Herald.

Other questions about the accuracy of the explosive memories have been raised after eagle-eyed readers on social media found other inaccuracies.

In Spare, the duke writes of his ‘great-great-great-great-great-grandfather’, King Henry VI, who founded Eton College and died in 1471, even though Henry VI’s direct lineage ended after his son, Edward of Westminster. , he died when he was a childless teenager at the Battle of Tewkesbury.

Prince Harry’s real great-great-grandfather was King George III, who reigned from 1760 to 1811, more than three centuries after Henry VI’s death.

Historians have been quick to take to social media to question the accuracy of Harry’s link to Henry VI, the last of the Lancastrian dynasty.

The royal correspondent Patricia Treble pointed out the genealogical error and the fact that Henry VI had no descendants after his son’s death in 1471.

The Duke’s account of how he learned of the Queen Mother’s death has also been disputed, with many arguing that he had been in Klosters, Switzerland, the weekend his grandmother died, and not Eton College in Windsor, England.

The Duke of Sussex wrote in painstaking detail about a call he received while studying at Eton College telling him that his great-grandmother had died on March 30, 2002.

He writes: ‘At Eton, while studying, I took the call.

‘I wish I could remember whose voice it was on the other end; of a courtier, I think.

“I remember it was just before Easter, the weather was bright and warm, the light was coming in obliquely through my window, full of vivid colours.”

However, resurfaced photos show Harry posing alongside his brother William and father Charles at a press call on March 29, having recently overcome a bout of glandular fever in time to hit the slopes.

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told MailOnline: “It appears from the evidence that he was certainly at Klosters when the Queen Mother died.”

“This portrayal of being at Eton, ‘the bright warm weather, the slanting light… vivid colours’ is therefore inaccurate.”