Secrets behind Spare as ghost writer ‘pushed Prince Harry to say certain things’
The ghost writer behind Prince Harry’s controversial and popular memoir Spare “pushed” the Duke of Sussex to speak about certain things in his book, according to Marina Hyde. Speaking with Richard Osman on their podcast The Rest Is Entertainment, the writer touched on the process and impact of ghost writers, using J.R. Moehringer as an example.
She said: “He was chosen because his [Andrea] Agassi book is amazing and you wouldn’t think, I mean Agassi was this great tennis player, he was showman, but the biography, the autobiography is absolutely brilliant.
“The greatest ghost writers and clearly what happened with Moehringer who gave some interviews after having done Spare, said he really pushed Prince Harry to say more and more about certain things.”
Marina added that when it comes to some books “the really sensational stuff or the very raw stuff comes right at the end”.
She added: “Right at the end when you’ve built up a long time of talking to someone maybe in their house over many many hours over some months, they come back and there’s a sort of dump of all the really intense personal stuff that is going to be the bit that’s in all the headlines, and is filleted out of the serialisations.”
After it was released, Spare became one of the fastest selling books shifting millions of copies within its first week. Furthermore, Nielsen BookData revealed that soon after publication, it became the fastest-selling non-fiction book in UK history.
However, despite the sales and subsequent financial windfall resulting from this, Spare proved a controversial tome due to the claims inside it, made by Prince Harry about senior members of the Royal Family.
