Expert Explains the Royal Family’s ‘Sensible Strategy’ for Staying Silent on Prince Harry’s ‘Spare’
TL;DR:
- “Dignified silence” is, according to a royal expert, a “tried and tested format” for the royal family.
- Any type of response, no matter how small, to Prince Harry’s claims in Spare only “fuels the narrative.”
- Experts say the royal family should do something about Prince Harry and his memoir privately.
The royal family’s remained tight-lipped on Prince Harry and Spare since the 400-page tome hit shelves in January 2023. Similarly, Harry & Meghan, which aired in December 2022, didn’t prompt responses from the Duke of Sussex’s relatives. So why the crickets from across the pond on Spare’s bombshells? According to experts, sometimes silence can be the “best advice.”
Expert says any response from the royal family on Prince Harry’s ‘Spare’ memoir ‘fuels the narrative’
Unlike the 2021 Oprah interview, Spare hasn’t resulted in a brief statement or any public comments from royals. “Dignified silence is a tried and tested format,” Katie Nicholl, author of The New Royals, told Time magazine.
The royal expert offered an explanation for the unwillingness to enter the fray by responding. “The palace is reluctant to engage at any level because once they do, it just fuels the narrative,” she said. Additionally, there’s the sheer volume of claims from King Charles III’s youngest son.
“Harry has made so many allegations it’s almost impossible to address every one,” Nicholl added. Instead, the institution’s silence is what the author called “a sensible strategy” leading to Harry’s reputation taking a hit.
Nicholl added Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September 2022, had a knack for restraining herself from commenting. She “only responded when she absolutely had to and it was often short and succinct,” Nicholl said.
Tim Jotischky, a director at The PHA Group, shared the royal family’s come out on top because of their silence.
“Sometimes the hardest thing in PR is to tell a client that the right course of action is to say nothing when your reputation is under attack,” he said. “The understandable reaction is to hit back, but it can often be the best advice.”
Spare’s “toe-curling detail” comes across as an “act of self-sabotage” by Harry, Jotischky added.
The royal family should do something about Prince Harry even if they’re not going to address ‘Spare’ claims publicly, experts say
While both Nicholl and Jotischky labeled the royal family’s silence a smart move, they do, however, feel the royal family should privately address the Harry-Spare situation.
Inviting Harry and Meghan to King Charles’ coronation would be “a distraction,” Jotischky said, “but it will avoid the royal family looking vindictive.” It would be an “important” step for “an institution that measures itself in centuries of history and tradition rather than sound bites and instant headlines.”
Nicholl’s advice to the royal family: be open to healing the rift with Harry to get closer to an image of unity. Because, right now, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are a “rival court in California.”
“Reconciliation is probably the greatest act of progression,” Nicholl said.
The royal family ‘does a lot of complaining and a lot of explaining’ through the press, according to Prince Harry
While the palace hasn’t — and probably will never — deviate from silence as a strategy as it pertains to Harry and Spare, the 38-year-old has claimed the royal family does do “complaining and explaining.”
“Every single time I’ve tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife,” Harry said in a Jan. 8 60 Minutes interview (via CBS News). “You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain, but it’s just a motto.”
The father of two went on to say the royal family does “a lot of complaining and a lot of explaining.” Just not outrightly. Instead, he claimed, it goes through the press.
“They will feed or have a conversation with the correspondent. And that correspondent will literally be spoon-fed information and write the story,” Harry said. “And at the bottom of it, they will say that they’ve reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. But the whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting.”
“So when we’re being told for the last six years, ‘We can’t put a statement out to protect you,’ but you do it for other members of the family,” he added, “there becomes a point when silence is betrayal.”
