07 January 2023 , 16:13
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Prince Harry 's claims are "like those of a B-list celebrity", a friend of the King has said - adding that he is "perplexed" by the Duke's bombshell memoir.
Excerpts from Spare have been widely shared in the last 48 hours since copies were discovered on sale accidentally early at a Spanish bookshop.
It includes accusations aimed at his brother, as well as personal details of his love life and his time in Afghanistan.
The book has baffled broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, who told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he imagines the King is "extremely pained” by the ongoing onslaught aimed at the Royal Family.
The 78-year-old said: “[Harry] is clearly a very troubled man.
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Jonathan Dimbleby has compared Prince Harry's claims to a B-list celebrity (Malcolm Hart 07577061208 Malcolm)"Yes, there are obviously revelations about how he lost his virginity, taking drugs and how many people he feels he might have shot down in Afghanistan from his Apache, but those are the kinds of revelations in part that you would expect, I suppose, from a kind of B-list celebrity.
"Much more significant are not what you would call revelations but allegations - complaints, the anger and pain of what he is saying.
"His assertion that this is his side because so far there has only been one side. It seems to me that I have not heard the other side at all because the other side is always silent.
Jonathan Dimbleby with then Prince Charles in his garden in Highgrove (PA)"So I am perplexed. I genuinely can't believe it is merely to make a great deal of money because of the perfectly natural urge to want to protect his family, his wife and his children in a very uncertain future.
"I think there is much more to that, but if he wants reconciliation, I don't understand how you do it by, as it were metaphorically, sitting in your Apache and firing pot shots at people who are not going to fire back, as he must very well know."
The broadcaster interviewed the then Prince Charles in 1994 when the royal admitted having an affair as his marriage with Princess Diana had "irretrievably broken down".
Dimbleby said the King would be "deeply pained" (PA)
Harry has made accusations aimed at his brother, as well as revealed personal secrets (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)Mr Dimbleby added he would be "very surprised" if Harry was not invited to the coronation, because to do otherwise would "simply fuel the flames".
He also told the programme Charles is possibly "deeply pained by it but he will get on with the job - that's what they do".
He added Harry has "perfectly understandably constructed a narrative of his life" which goes back to "the acute enduring distress of the loss" of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a car crash in 1997.