JR Moehringer, the ghostwriter of Prince Harry’s explosive tale “Spare”defends factual errors and inconsistencies in the memoirs that have just been published.
And he did it with a quote from another author.
In a Wednesday tweet, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former Los Angeles Times writer seemed to address the book’s picky reviews with a quote from “The Liars’ Club” author Mary Karr, who wrote “The Art of Memoir” in 2015.
“The line between memory and fact is blurred, between interpretation and fact,” the quote card said. “There are unintentional mistakes like this in the wazoo.”
The dismissive response from ‘The Tender Bar’ author came amid readers who clung to a litany of fact-checking errors, inconsistencies about Harry’s family tree and anachronisms throughout. long. the book of more than 400 pageswhich targets the British royal family – mainly his older brother, Prince Williamwho is the heir to the throne and whose position in the royal line of succession makes Harry the “substitute” heir.
The book has already Sales records broken With 1.43 million copies in English – including print, electronic and audiobook formats – sold on its first day of publication in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, publisher Penguin Random House has said in a statement Wednesday. It is the book house’s highest first-day sales total for any non-fiction book it has ever published.
Although officially released on Tuesday, excerpts from the book leaked online last week and it accidentally put up for sale five days earlier in Spain. Penguin Random House originally ordered 2 million copies of the book in print in the United States and has now returned it “to the press for additional copies to meet demand”. Analysts have suggested that 1.7 million print and electronic copies of “Spare” must be sold for the publisher. break even on the $20 million advance it paid Harry for his story.
Among the first fact-checking errors to be reported was Harry’s claim about where he was when his great-grandmother died in March 2002. The prince, fifth in line to the British throne, said he was at his prestigious boarding school, Eton College. But the photos of the days preceding the Death of the 101-year-old Queen Mother showed him on a ski trip to Switzerland instead, GBNews reported.
Another involves Harry’s account of his wife Meghan Markle’s casual jumper-jean ensemble she wore on their first date, which contradicts the outfit the former ‘Suits’ actor said that she was wearing – a dress.
The former Duke of Sussex also writes that King Henry VI, who founded Eton, was his “great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather”. But, like many social media users and historians pointed out, the 15th-century monarch had only one son, Edward of Westminster, who died aged 17 at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 – having no children of his own, thus nullifying the claim from Harry to the direct line.
Another inconsistency concerns what Harry wrote about transporting Markle’s father to the UK from his home in Mexico amid an upcoming media attack on staged photographs that Thomas Markle took in 2018a week before theirs Royal wedding watched around the world.
“We told him, leave Mexico now: a whole new level of harassment is about to rain down on you, so come to Britain. Now,” the prince wrote. “Air New Zealand, first class, booked and paid for by Meg.”
But according to the New Zealand Herald, Air New Zealand said on Wednesday that it had “never operated flights” between Mexico and Great Britain. Plus, it only offers Business Premier fares rather than first class, as Harry said.
Recalling a story about a gift left to him by his late mother, Princess Diana, the embattled royal shares that his memories are sometimes inaccurate and he sees it as a defense mechanism. The revelation comes after a passage in the book about his aunt, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, giving her an Xbox game console that her mother bought for her before she died. The gift was given to him on his 13th birthday in 1997; However, as noted by several reviewers, the device was first launched in the United States in 2001 and overseas in 2002.
While the prince has been criticized for his inaccuracies, some are defending him and his ghostwriter.
“I think Harry meant PlayStation which came out in 1995, or the console before Xbox,” one person tweeted. “It’s easy to confuse names and he was 13 at the time, that was over 20 years ago after a huge traumatic loss. His mum gave him a game console. You sort out all the details.
Others thought Moehringer would likely bear the most blame. The hashtags #PrinceHarryhasgonemad and #PrinceHarryExposed gained momentum even before the book was published while the prince took part in a promotional blitz for the project and makes more explosive revelations along the way.
“I give it about a month before Harry and his landlady Meghan try to throw @JRMoehringer under the bus and claim that the total destruction of Harry’s reputation because of #Spare is the ghostwriter’s fault. Hope he had a very strong non-disparagement clause,” another tweeted.
Unlike Moehringer, Penguin Random House and Prince have yet to publicly comment on the inaccuracies.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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