Prince Harry conducted his first interview in front of a live studio audience with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, a talk that aired tonight. The two talk about how the launch of Spare, Harry’s memoir, was.
Early on, Colbert and Harry are talking about the leaks that have come to light in the days leading up to his book’s release and how some aspects of Spare might be making people uncomfortable, as the prince asks, “Are there any tonight Veterans in the house?” to a little cheering from the audience.
“I think one of the most…” he begins before pausing to say, “look I’m not going to lie, the last few days have been hurtful and challenging. Not being able to do anything about these leaks that you have Without a doubt, the most dangerous lie they have told is that I kind of boasted about the number of people I killed in Afghanistan.”
Colbert agrees, saying that he read that particular passage and “there is nothing boastful about it”.
Harry says, “If I heard someone brag about something like that, I’d be furious. But it’s a lie. And hopefully now that the book is out people will be able to see the context. And it’s — it’s really troubling and very troubling that they’re getting away with it.”
“My words are not dangerous. But the turn of my words was dangerous,” he adds, noting how his writing was taken out of context.
spare part
In Spare, Harry spends a lot of time writing about his military service, particularly his time in Afghanistan. However, the passage he is referring to comes when he is talking about death and those he has killed. He writes: “Most soldiers cannot tell you exactly how many deaths are on their ledger. In combat conditions, shooting is often indiscriminate. But in the age of Apaches and laptops, I did everything over the course of two years. Combat missions were recorded with time stamps. I could always tell exactly how many enemy combatants I had killed. And I thought it was important never to shy away from that number. Among the many things I learned in the Army, accountability was near the top of the list. So my number: twenty-five.”
Harry continues, “It wasn’t a number that satisfied me. But it wasn’t a number that shamed me either. Of course I would have preferred not to have that number on my military résumé, but in my mind for the same reason I would have preferred to live in a world where there were no Taliban, a world without war. But even for a casual practitioner of magical thinking like me, some realities just aren’t going to change.”
Scott Kowalchyk/CBS
Harry’s memoir, Spare, was released today and immediately grabbed the headlines. The royal unveiling includes numerous startling revelations, including how Queen Camilla reportedly leaked stories about her stepsons Harry and William and how the BBC’s Harry found out that Queen Elizabeth had died.
Emily Burack (she/she) is the newswriter for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals and a range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was deputy editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.