Prince Harry has shared that he believes he was only bred to offer spare organs to his brother, Prince William.
In yet another bitter revelation from the Duke of Sussex’s memoir Spare, he revealed that he thinks he was only brought into the world in case the heir apparent needed help.
“Two years older than me, Willy was the Heir, whereas I was the Spare,” the exiled prince wrote, explaining the title of his memoir, which was officially released on Wednesday.
“I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy,” he wrote of his brother and current heir to the throne.
He said he understood his role was to be a “diversion” and “distraction” from his brother, or to provide, “if necessary, a spare part” to him.
“Kidney, perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow,” he added in morose detail.
He also shared how his dad, now King Charles III, could never be on a plane with his elder son, William, “because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out”.
“But no one gave a damn whom I travelled with; the Spare could always be spared,” Harry claimed.
“This was all made explicitly clear to me from the start of life’s journey and regularly reinforced thereafter,” he claimed of his apparent throwaway standing in the family.
Harry complained that the heir and spare clarification “wasn’t merely how the press referred to us”, but was also “the shorthand used by” his royal family, including “Mummy,” the late Princess Diana, “and even Granny,” the since-deceased Queen Elizabeth II.
He wrote that when he was 20-years-old, he was told that his father reacted to his birth by saying to Princess Diana, “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and a Spare — my work is done.”
Despite naming his memoir Spare, and using his clear distaste for his role in life to justify his ultimate split from his family, Harry maintains that he was initially accepting of it.
“I took no offence, I felt nothing about it, any of it,” he wrote — initially acknowledging his incredibly privileged life.
“Every boy and girl, at least once, imagines themselves as a prince or a princess. Therefore, Spare or no Spare, it wasn’t half bad to actually be one,” he conceded.
Image credits: Getty Images
This article first appeared on OverSixty.