Over-sharing is one of the curses of modernity, for the talker and the listener. Too many people admire over-sharers, make money from them, and otherwise aid and abet the practice.
Celebrity victim couple the Sussexes are not even close to drawing a line under the publication of their perceived grievances. They can expect a few more years of celebrity and more money along the way. What they will not receive is respect. That’s how this modern affliction turns on its own.
Harry might imagine that by publishing Spare, along with his promotional television interviews to spruik the book this week, he is doing something that will, finally, earn him some respect.
It is hard to disagree with The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff that “there is something deeply unhealthy about hereditary power”, even if the power these days is more symbolic than real. It can’t be easy being the “spare” in a hierarchical system where, as Hinsliff wrote last week, the “goal of the monarchy is its own survival, which means its instinct is to protect the heir at all costs”.
The aggrieved duke could have written an absorbing book about the future of monarchy, the difficulties of being part of this institution and the escalating media intrusion. Instead, Harry opted for self-absorption and embarked on a crusade to rip down his family.
Hereditary power dynamics aside, plenty of families suffer tragedy and have brawls. A parent dies; a child pushes back against a new stepmother; one brother pushes another, one lands in a dog bowl, there is yelling; the same brother dresses up as a Nazi, then blames his older brother; a sister-in-law called Kate is not happy about sharing her lip gloss with another sister-in-law named Meg; Meg accuses Kate of having baby brain; Harry accuses Will of switching seating cards at his marriage to Meghan; Harry takes drugs; and a period of estrangement ensues. All pretty standard stuff.
Most people deal with family fights in private. And before you ask, no, I don’t share my lip gloss with women I barely know and, yes, I have swapped seating cards.
Harry is not a man in youthful revolt. He is a 38-year-old man with a family. His over-sharing in Spare points to a sad sack of a man who needs a purpose because right now, and for the insufferable future, Harry can only talk about himself.
Many who previously have been sympathetic to the Markles are just as repelled by the over-sharing as those more suspicious of them. In this sense the Markles have brought people together. It is barmy that he wants the world to know that his penis was ridden like a stallion’s by an older woman in a field behind a noisy pub; how he spoke to a clairvoyant about his dead mum, and sang with seals in Scotland; that he is circumcised, and he had frostbite on his penis; and on and on and on.
We get that Harry hasn’t grown up in a house known for sharing. But like a kid who grew up in some weird sugar-free household, Harry now can’t regulate his desire for sharing everything about him to every single person.
The Markles have come to symbolise a phenomenon that goes beyond wondering about the future of monarchy in the 21st century. They are the pin-up over-sharing celebrity victim couple whose chosen path is not going to plan. Their celebrity is global, their bank balance is growing. And respect for them is tanking. Harry’s book has given a glimpse into a sad, messed-up man whose relationship with his wife borders on creepy. Does he think he has married his mother?
Instead of releasing a book and doing interviews that may have earned him sympathy, even respect, he has gone big on the cringe factor. At the time of writing, the cringe winner was when he told ITV’s Tom Bradby this week: “I hope what I say to my father and brother remains private.” Is this man bonkers or is he gaslighting us? Harry, you are the one making private conversations public.
For all the people around Mr Markle – agents, publicists, ghost writers, so-called friends and other hangers-on – there is, patently, not a single person who can advise him not to play the whining, hypocritical, deluded and entitled royal who blames others for his unhappiness. He would have been better off speaking about his book plans to the person who cleans his house or delivers the groceries rather than the myriad grifters who are making money from his perceived grievances.
No one expects Harry to be clever. But he should have been clever enough to seek advice before talking about the number of people he killed as a soldier in Afghanistan. “My number is 25,” Harry says, recounting how he was taught to think of the victims as “chess pieces”.
His safety, and that of his family, has not been enhanced by that piece of over-sharing.
The Markles eventually will run out of material about themselves; we will grow bored, even from laughing at them. In fact, Harry’s over-sharing may help to reboot admiration for those who do not talk about themselves. The more he talks, the more admiration the rest of the royal family will receive for staying quiet, for not airing their dirty family laundry in public.
Queen Elizabeth’s motto of “never complain, never explain” has never been more admirable.
It is a godsend that QE2 is not here to witness how Harry is exploiting his royalness, not just to make pots of ill-gotten money as a celebrity victim but with a series of attacks that he knows his family will not respond to.
On that note, Prince William’s friends, those speaking anonymously to The Times and other newspapers about the prince’s reaction to Spare, would do well to stay quiet too. We know William is, understandably, fuming inside. But less is often more.
This over-sharing business is not exclusive to celebrities either. We have all wasted untold hours at dinners and parties, in meetings and assorted gatherings, with people who talk too much and say very little.
Granted, 2023 is on track to be another year of public blabbering by the Markles, who believe a life shared in the media and social media is a life well lived. But Harry’s next book might traverse how over-sharing is not all it’s cracked up to be.
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