Spare ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer didn’t just argue with Prince Harry during the writing process. The two also shared some lighter moments. How the Duke of Sussex responded to an expert’s comment regarding the memoir and his father, King Charles III. Plus, the writer’s laugh-inducing remark.
Princess Diana’s biographer said King Charles should find a ‘pile of coats to hide under’ because of ‘Spare’
From the moment Harry’s memoir was announced in the summer of 2021, royal commentators and experts speculated on its every aspect. The contents, the title, the cover image, and, of course, how the royal family might react.
Andrew Morton, the royal expert who secretly collaborated with Harry’s late mother, Princess Diana, on the 1992 biography, Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words, shared his thoughts on Spare. Particularly how he felt Harry’s father, the then-Prince of Wales, should’ve reacted to the book announcement.
“If I was Prince Charles, I’d be looking for a pile of coats to hide under,” Morton told UsWeekly in October 2021, more than a year after Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back as senior “working” royals. “I think we’re going to see Charles once more in the firing line.”
Harry asked ‘Why?’ before laughing with his ‘Spare’ ghostwriter and returning to work
Discussing his experience working on Spare, Moehringer told The New Yorker how Harry reacted to the comment about King Charles.
At the time, they’d already “amassed hundreds of thousands of words” communicating via Zoom, phone, and text. The writer had also visited Harry at home in Montecito, California, on three occasions.
Then their “bubble” burst. “Someone leaked the news of the book,” Moehringer recalled. “One royal expert cautioned that, because of my involvement in the book, Harry’s father should be ‘looking for a pile of coats to hide under.’”
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The Spare ghostwriter continued, revealing when he “mentioned this to Harry, he stared,” before saying, “‘Why?’” Moehringer’s response: “‘Because I have daddy issues.’”
As described in his own memoir, The Tender Bar, Moehringer grew up listening to his estranged New York DJ father on the radio while being raised by a single mother.
Finally, Moehringer recalled what happened after his ‘daddy issues’ remark: “We laughed and got back to discussing our mothers.”
Harry’s comments about King Charles in ‘Spare’
The Duke of Sussex spent many passages in Spare discussing his mother. He recounted learning of Diana’s death, walking behind her coffin as a 12-year-old boy, the aftermath, and repressing his grief.
In addition to opening up about his mother, Harry also painted a portrait of his father, King Charles, whose Westminster Abbey coronation he attended on May 6. Included in Spare are numerous heartbreaking passages about King Charles.
In one, Harry recalled his father’s preference for letters over phone calls during his tours in Afghanistan with the British Army. Another described how King Charles wasn’t necessarily cut out for parenthood, let alone being a single father.
Harry’s dad, whom he referred to as “Pa” in Spare, wasn’t the only royal who came under fire in the memoir. Prince William, Harry’s older brother, came under fire. As did British tabloids and “dangerous” Queen Camilla.
Harry’s Spare memoir debuted in January 2023. Since then, it has topped best-seller lists, breaking a Guinness World Record to become the fastest-selling non-fiction book.
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