'Mate. Get your d*ck sorted.' A very honest recap of the most bizarre parts of Spare.

We were only a few days into 2023 when it happened. 

A person in Spain, whose New Year's resolution was clearly to cause global chaos, 'accidentally' released the most anticipated book of the year... several days early. 

Suddenly, every journalist on the planet had one job and one job only: learn Spanish. Immediately. 

There were leaks. There were extracts. There was a story about Prince Harry losing his virginity to a woman who treated him like a "young stallion" (?) to the point where she smacked his rump (??) and we assumed some of the details had been lost in translation but that was not the case.

The translation was flawless. 

By the time Spare was officially released on January 10, many of us had already heard about Prince Harry's physical fight with 'Willy', his desire for his father to not marry Camilla Parker Bowles, and his description of his brother's "alarming" baldness. What more could this memoir possibly contain? Well.

D*cks.

Cocaine.

Kate Middleton not sharing lip gloss.

Princess Charlotte having a tantrum.

More d*cks.

A King who still has his teddy bear.

A rotting foot.

A psychic who's definitely scamming Harry. 

For a large portion of the population – particularly those based in the UK – the reaction to Prince Harry publishing these details has been how very dare you.  

How dare you blow open the lid on the royal family when they’ve done nothing but sit quietly and pillage innocent countries and commit colonialist atrocities? How dare you call out the British tabloids when all they did was play a key role in your mother’s death and also participate in illegal activities such as corruption and bribery and phone hacking? HOW DARE YOU?

My reaction, however, has been more like Harry, you dirty dog, tell me more. Say what you will about the man, but he's committed to the gossip. When he says he's going to tell his story, he doesn't just give a few cute anecdotes about granny and her corgis. He blows up the royal family. Broadly.

He was, after all, raised in an institution that says this four-year-old boy is more entitled to be King than Harry – a 38-year-old man. 

'And no sweets for Uncle Harry. Haha.' Image: Getty.

So. There's a lot of weirdness to address.

Not everyone has the time to read Spare, given that it's 416 pages and a disproportionate amount of it (in my opinion) is dedicated to military moments I don't understand. 

But for reasons I can't quite articulate, I have read every word. So here's a very honest recap of the most bizarre parts of Prince Harry's Spare. 

We start with a description of Harry standing in Frogmore gardens, waiting for his father ('Pa') and brother ('Willy'). At no point throughout the book is it acknowledged that for many readers, the term Willy exclusively makes us think of a flaccid penis. By the end, my image of Prince William, the future King of England, is of a bald man whose entire being has the vibe of a hairless, prepubescent willy. 

But back to the beginning. 

Willy and Pa arrive, and we learn that they call Harry (whose real name is Henry) 'Harold'. It turns out the royals have far too much time on their hands because everyone has 59 nicknames. 

It's the day of Prince Philip's funeral – in April, 2021 – and Harry tries to explain "his side of things". He doesn't mention this explicitly, but it's a month after the Oprah interview, so I can imagine Charles and William were saying something like: why did you go on the television and disclose all our secrets mate that was unexpected. 

As William and Harry start arguing in the gardens, Charles interrupts. "Please, boys," he begs. "Don't make my final years a misery."

Oh, sweetie. You just... wait.

William insists he doesn't know why Harry left the royal family, and Charles reiterates that he doesn't understand either. 

This book, it seems, is a 100,000 word attempt to explain it to them. 

So begins part one, and shut the f**k up because Charles is doing a headstand. 

Harry describes that while at the royal residence in Balmoral, "open the wrong door and you might burst in on Pa while his valet was helping him dress. Worse, you might blunder in as he was doing his headstands."

He describes the now King of England in "just a pair of boxers, propped up against a door," and no. 

Firstly, why do all dads do their physio-prescribed exercises in the strangest places, and secondly, I now can't stop thinking about King Charles' testicles hanging out of his boxers while he balances upside down. 

"Pa's balls were blowing in the wind..." Image: Getty.

We learn the devastating details of how Harry was told about his mother's death, and how he thought for years she'd simply disappeared.

Then how William and Harry asked their father not to marry Camilla. Harry writes that she "began to play the long game, a campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the Crown," and leaked stories about Willy. 

The man hates his stepmother and Charles is going to be so mad. 

While at school, stories started to leak about a teenage Prince Harry, and he describes his existence being just "fun and games to these people. I wasn't a human being to them". He describes the "absolutely s**tty writing" in the tabloids as a "masterclass in illiteracy" and we should all aspire to this level of pettiness. 

He shares stories about doing cocaine, and I've said it once and I'll say it again: no one is surprised by a private school boy in London doing cocaine. No one.

Listen to Mamamia's comedy podcast CANCELLED about Prince Harry. Post continues after audio.

What is surprising is the time Harry moved to Australia and tried to pick up our slang. 

"I spent a lot of 2003 sitting high in the saddle, watching a weaner while sucking a smoko and dreaming of my next tucker," he writes and holy s**t never try to use our words again. 

Literally none of those words are in the right context and I'm deeply offended that no editor picked up on it. 

A year later, he's in Cape Town and he meets Chelsy – the woman he would date on and off for six years. He writes repeatedly that she was "different," in that "she wasn't visibly fitting herself for a crown the moment she shook my hand". 

Omg Harry pls tell us who WAS fitting themselves for a crown I need to know their names immediately. 

As Harry's falling in love with Chelsy, his father plans to marry Camilla, although there were many delays. 

"If you listened carefully," he writes, "you could hear... the shrieks and groans of despair. You just couldn't tell whose they were: the wedding planner's or Camilla's (or Pa's)."

So you're saying. Camilla. Shrieked. About her wedding. Tell me more. 

He wanted her to be happy, he says. "Maybe she'd be less dangerous if she was happy." 

It's January 2005 and someone has a frankly appalling idea. Harry describes wanting to make Kate laugh with his costume for Willy's friend's party, and so he dresses in the only silly way he knows how: as a nazi. 

He wants us all to know that both Willy and Kate laughed and that when he showed them two different options, THEY chose the nazi uniform!

...Sir. 

Soon after, he joined the army. As he goes into detail about five weeks of bootcamp and the discipline of a military environment, I have the thought I always have when someone describes the army: do I... do I low-key want to join the defence force? Maybe I want to be told what to do and destroy my ego and push my body to its limits?

Then Harry gets trench foot and I suddenly change my mind. 

The next third of the book is about Harry's time in the army, and I'm sorry but I shan't be trying to explain anything about Afghanistan. 

I shall, however, share details about Harry's frostnipped penis. He went to the North Pole, you see, and when he came back home for Willy's wedding, he noticed his willy was tender.

Any moisture freezes at the North Pole, and initially he noticed trouble on his fingers and ears. But while they started to heal, his "todger" didn't. 

"I don't know why I should've been reluctant to discuss my penis with Pa," Harry writes and maybe because you were a 25-year-old man who had frostbite on your d*ck and he was the future King of England. 

"Ever heard of frostnip?" Image: Getty.

Luckily, at this point Harry confirms that despite media reports, he was circumcised as a baby. So. 

Even after the wedding, Harry's penis "was oscillating between extremely sensitive and borderline traumatised" and no offence mate but get your d*ck sorted?? Surely you can find a good doctor?

He says a friend told him to apply Elizabeth Arden cream to it – the same one his mother used on her lips – and, again, you need a doctor. As a matter of urgency. 

When he finally sees a doctor, he's told only 'time' will heal it and THE MAN HAS A FROZEN D*CK CAN SOMEONE TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY? 

We learn about Harry's recurrent panic attacks, and how he hardly left his home in 2015, and then we have a change of tone. He's at Courtney Cox's house in LA, and helps himself to some black diamond mushroom chocolates. As you do. He goes on to describe his trip and I have an issue I'd like to raise.

It is precisely never interesting to hear the details of someone else's drug-fuelled experience. It's like listening to a dream, only worse. Harry spoke to a bathroom bin except he didn't really because a bin is just a bin and he was high and probably laughing hysterically around other people who were completely sober. 

But shhhh because it's time for Meghan. 

Harry spots her in a video on Instagram and spends several paragraphs trying to explain just how beautiful she is. 

He simply can't get over it. "There was something in the way she smiled..." he writes, "the way she gazed into the camera.

"She believed life was one grand adventure... what a privilege it would be, I thought, to join her on that journey.

"I got all that from her face. Her luminous, angelic face..."

MATE, WE GET IT. SHE'S REALLY, REALLY HOT. No one has ever had that sort of internal monologue after seeing a video of me on the internet and suddenly I find that quite upsetting. 

The day of their first date, Harry peed his pants. I refuse to provide further context.

He was late to meet Meghan (unrelated to the wetting himself incident), and writes, "I couldn't imagine many people had been late for this woman". 

Well. People are late for me all the time. So. 

"I'd seen so many photos of her from fashion shoots and TV sets, all glam and glossy," he writes, "but here she was, in the flesh, no frills, no filter... and even more beautiful. Heart attack beautiful."

Yes yes yes the woman's stunning. You'd almost think she was a famous actress or something.

After a couple of dates, they did what all new couples do: they went to Botswana. 

We learn that the royal family has firm rules about relationships, and the main one is that you need to date someone for a minimum of three years before you propose. But Harry knew early on that Meghan was the exception, because of her... face.

Harry writes that when he told Willy and Kate who he was dating, they lost their s**t. They. Liked. Suits. Very. Much. 

Out of all the details he includes about his brother and his wife in Spare, I feel like this is the one that will piss them off the most. "We watched it for the plot!" they'll yell. "Mike Ross has a brilliant legal mind! We didn't even notice the sexy paralegal, not even in the sex scenes!"

"You've gotta watch it to understand!" Image: Getty.

Harry tells the story of Meghan meeting the Queen and how she assumed the man standing beside her was the Queen's 'assistant'. Surprise: it was accused sex offender and the Queen's second son, Prince Andrew. Cool.

When Harry decided to propose to Meghan, he writes, Willy apparently told him he was going "too fast". When he eventually asked the Queen for permission, as was required, she replied, "well, then, I suppose I have to say yes". 

In the lead-up to the wedding, Harry also got permission from the Queen to keep his beard, and Willy was furious because he had to shave his beard for his wedding. Is it relatable? Not particularly, no. 

We learn about Meghan's tiara and the rumours that spread around her 'demanding' it – none of which, Harry says, were true. 

But the part I've been waiting for is about Princess. Charlotte's. Bridesmaids. Dress. 

Name something more terrifying than a three-year-old. Image: Getty.

It starts with Kate texting Meghan. The bridesmaids' dresses needed altering. Meghan responded saying the tailor was standing by for alterations but no. 

Kate said Charlotte's dress was too big, too long and too baggy. "She cried when she tried it on at home," Kate said, and okay. Charlotte was three. She probably cried when she wasn't allowed to poke her dog in the eye. 

Kate insisted the dresses needed to be remade, and Meghan reiterated that the tailor was standing by. To alter. The dress.

The drama. I can't. 

When Harry arrived home, Meghan was sobbing on the floor. Kate brought flowers over the following day to apologise. 

After the wedding, Meghan and Harry went to Willy and Kate's house to "clear the air". But after a few pleasantries, everyone got petty. Willy and Kate were mad they hadn't been given Easter presents. Meghan and Harry were mad that Willy and Kate had switched place cards and changed seats at their wedding. 

Then Kate told Meghan she'd hurt her feelings when "I couldn't remember something and you said it was my hormones."

"We're not close enough for you to talk about my hormones!" she said.

No this is like Real Housewives but royal edition. 

Willy pointed at Meghan and said, "it's rude, Meghan. It's not what's done here in Britain," and Meghan replied, "kindly take your finger out of my face."

All families should disclose all their gossip immediately because why is this so entertaining. 

Harry writes that after a successful international tour, Meghan was branded 'Duchess Difficult', perhaps because she was doing "too well" as a working royal. 

He tells the story of Willy coming to his home to confront him about Meghan being "difficult," and the physical altercation that followed. It was soon after that incident that it was announced the two royal households – Cambridge and Sussex – would no longer share an office.

It is clear, however, that every now and then, Willy and Harold would reconnect with a shared purpose: to bitch about Pa. 

So true. 

I HATE when my dad leaks stories about me to the press to maintain his own reputation. It's so annoying.

Harry shares the birth stories of both his children, joking that he consumed all the laughing gas during Meghan's labour. He writes that when the nurse realised, she laughed, as did Meghan, and out of everything in this book, it is this detail that I must call out as a barefaced lie. The woman was in labour. Nothing was funny – least of all you stealing her pain relief, fkn Harold. 

Most of the details of how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back from their royal duties were relayed in the couple's Netflix documentary, yet Harry goes into detail about the sense of betrayal he felt from his family.

Then... we meet a woman with "powers". 

"Your mother is with you," the woman tells Harry, at an undisclosed location. "Your mother knows you're looking for clarity. Your mother feels your confusion. She knows that you have so many questions."

Okay. So I'm not a psychic, but if I was pretending to be a psychic, I'd say the exact same thing to Prince Harry. 

Wow lady. They're some impressive powers. Image: Getty.

The woman references an ornament of the Queen that Archie had broken, and how Harry's mother was there when it happened. It's spooky but also who knows, maybe the woman was stalking him through his windows like the pararazzi. 

Ultimately, we return to the garden we started in, with Willy and Pa, after Prince Philip's funeral. "I've felt properly sick and ill after everything that's happened," Willy says. "I swear to you now on Mummy's life that I just want you to be happy."

Harry replies, "I really don't think you do."

The book ends with Meghan's words, that to her, Harry is not a spare. Despite everything – the level of disclosure, the media circus, and the very American ethos of 'telling your story' – it's impossible to not be moved.

It also appears Harry's penis was just fine after the frostnip. Which is a relief. 

A viral TikTok suggests that Spare needed to be just 10 per cent less. Perhaps less d*cks. Less details about Charles' quirks. Less play-by-plays of Harry's fights with Willy and Kate. 

But I disagree. Harold was exceedingly generous with the gossip, and for that I am grateful. I can only hope he's paving a new path for the royals, and that in 30 years time I'm reading Princess Charlotte's tell-all, starting with her strategic tantrum about a dress. 

For more from Clare Stephens you can follow her on Instagram and TikTok. 

You can listen to CANCELLED on Apple podcasts or Spotify. 

Image: Getty. 

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