10 things we learnt from explosive new book about Harry and Meghan
Five years ago, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decided to leave the royal family for life in California in a move that was later called “Megxit”.
Since then, they have starred in their own Netflix documentary, Harry published his explosive memoir Spare and Meghan launched a lifestyle brand, As Ever.
However, behind their carefully polished public image the Sussexes appear to be heading towards a “downward spiral of decline”, according to Tom Bower, the author of an unauthorised biography of the couple.
Harry and Meghan are whining narcissists — here’s why in 464 pages
Betrayal: Power, Deceit and the Fight for the Future of the Royal Family, which is published on Thursday, examines how it seemingly all went wrong for the golden couple.
1. Meghan ‘thought she should be treated as God’
When she spoke to Oprah Winfrey in 2021, Meghan claimed that Palace officials never explained to her what she could expect marrying into the royal family. In his memoir, Harry also claimed: “Meghan wasn’t given one minute of training.”
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In his book, however, Bower describes that Meghan received coaching and instructions from several senior courtiers and Palace officials at the request of Queen Elizabeth.
One official lamented that Meghan seemed to refuse to grasp that “the royal family is the nation’s family and a national obsession. The royals may appear to be ordinary people but to maintain the monarchy, they relied on the public’s willingness to treat them like God.”
The courtier realised that Meghan appeared to ignore all the advice and instead “thought she should be treated as God”.
2. Meghan to William: ‘Get your finger out of my face’
Before the Sussexes left the UK in 2021, tensions between the Sussexes and the Prince and Princess of Wales rose sharply, according to the book.
Even before the wedding William had warned his brother the relationship was moving too fast, according to reports. William and Kate were “alarmed” by Meghan and believed she “lamented Harry’s unlikely chance of one day being king, just as she regretted the possibility that she would never be queen”.
Shortly after the Sussexes returned from their honeymoon in the summer of 2018, relations broke down at a conciliatory teatime meeting that culminated in Meghan snapping at William: “If you don’t mind, get your finger out of my face.”
3. Camilla believed Meghan ‘brainwashed’ Harry
The book describes that during this time the royal family feared Meghan had become a “divisive agent” and that those around Harry feared he had become estranged from his relatives when he changed his phone number without telling them.
Bower writes: “Increasingly, his character mirrored Meghan’s. Emotionally, he veered towards extremes. Simple dislikes became passionate hatred. ‘Meghan’s brainwashed Harry,’ Camilla told a friend.”
4. Editors found Harry a ‘difficult author’
Two years after having stepped down as a working royal, Harry published Spare, ghostwritten by JR Moehringer, which included a number of explosive claims about the royal family.
Bower describes how writing and editing the book proved to have been an exhausting process for editors at Random House, the publisher. A senior rewriter claimed: “Harry was considered to be a difficult author.”
Ben Greenberg, the publisher’s editor-in-chief, was reported to have complained Harry was “argumentative” and “missing deadlines”. He also rejected a dozen cover pictures for the book.
5. Meghan ‘used tours to say royal family was racist’
In 2024, Harry and Meghan travelled to Nigeria to promote the Invictus Games, a trip that caused criticism after it was styled as a quasi-royal tour despite the fact the Sussexes were no longer working royals.
Bower claimed that the pair believed Nigeria was “the perfect battleground on which to weaponise a portrayal of the royal family as racist”.
The director of Invictus was reported to have told Harry that the majority of Nigerians were convinced Meghan was a victim of the royal family’s racism, according to the book.
Bower writes: “Over a dinner conversation in the military’s headquarters, Meghan told her story of two senior royals asking Harry while she was pregnant what colour the unborn child would be.”
6. American corporations did not want Harry’s ‘victimhood’
Harry founded Sentebale, a charity helping young people with HIV in Lesotho and Botswana, in memory of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 2006. However, by 2023 there were internal disagreements over the charity’s financial strategy.
The newly appointed chair, Sophie Chandauka, conducted a brand audit among 50 organisations and donors, which found that Harry’s personal brand value had crashed and it was damaged further by Meghan, the book claims.
After being confronted with these findings, Harry implied “he had suffered psychological harm from the audit”, Bower writes.
Chandauka was reported to have said: “We need American corporates who want to be associated with your mission, not you personally. They don’t want your victimhood. We’ve got to pitch it right for the young philanthropists.”
7. Invictus Games became the ‘Harry and Meghan show’
The biography also claims that Meghan wanted to use Harry’s Invictus Games platform as a “global stage for genuine admiration and cheering fans”.
Bower writes that the former head of the Invictus Foundation, Dominic Reid, voiced concerns that sport and competitors were being overshadowed and that the games had become the “Harry and Meghan show”.
He writes: “Meghan needed a global stage for genuine admiration and cheering fans. To her good fortune, Harry agreed that she could star at the Invictus Games, which he was about to open in Canada. Just before flying up to Vancouver in a private jet, she alerted her Instagram followers.”
Bower also recounted how Harry and Meghan “insisted” on being addressed as “Ma’am and Sir” and claimed the organisers thought of them as being “pushy”.
8. Harry feared to be stripped of his titles
Late last year the King decided to strip his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal titles, honours and stately home due to his connections with the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Bower claims Harry was surprised by William’s response to these revelations and feared that “the future King William could remove all the Sussexes’ titles and effectively banish him from Britain”.
9. Sussexes say the book is a ‘deranged conspiracy’
A spokesman for Harry and Meghan dismissed the claim.
They said: “Mr Bower’s commentary has long crossed the line from criticism into fixation. This is someone who has publicly stated, ‘the monarchy in fact depends on actually obliterating the Sussexes from our state of life’, language that speaks for itself.
“He has made a career out of constructing ever more elaborate theories about people he does not know and has never met. Those interested in facts will look elsewhere; those seeking deranged conspiracy and melodrama know exactly where to find him. Shame on him and shame on The Times for platforming him.”
10. The damage done to the royal family ‘has been enormous’
When Bower wrote his first book about the Sussexes in 2022, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, the couple were at “the height of their fame and fortune”.
Since then their lives appear to have unravelled as they found themselves “heading downwards in a spiral of decline”, Bower said.
He told The Times: “I feel like the truth has to be told about them and the damage they’ve done has been so enormous to the royal family. I’m fascinated to know how it’s all going to end. I can’t imagine how this whole saga is going to end because it’s got to come to some sort of climax.”