Prince Harry Tells Stephen Colbert the Past Few Days Have Been "Hurtful" and "Challenging"
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Prince Harry did his first interview in front of a live studio audience with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, a conversation which aired this evening. The two talk about what the rollout of Spare, Harry's memoir, has been like.
Early on, Colbert and Harry are speaking about the leaks that have come out in the days leading up to his book's release and how some aspects of Spare may make people feel uncomfortable, when the Prince asks: "Are there any veterans in the house tonight?" to a smattering of cheers in the audience.
"I think one of the most—" he begins, before cutting himself off to say, "look, I'm not gonna lie, the last few days have been hurtful and challenging. Not being able to do anything about those leaks that you refer to. Without doubt, the most dangerous lie that they have told is that I somehow boasted about the number of people I killed in Afghanistan."
Colbert agrees, saying he's read that particular passage, and "there's nothing boastful about it."
Harry says, "If I heard anyone boasting about that kind of thing, I would be angry. But it's a lie. And hopefully, now that the book is out, people will be able to see the context. And it is—it's really troubling and very disturbing that they can get away with it."
"My words are not dangerous. But the spin of my words have been dangerous," he adds, referencing how his writing has been taken out of context.
In Spare, Harry spends much time writing of his military service, particularly his time in Afghanistan. The passage he's referring to, however, comes when he's discussing death, and those he's killed. He writes, "Most soldiers can’t tell you precisely how much death is on their ledger. In battle conditions, there’s often a great deal of indiscriminate firing. But in the age of Apaches and laptops, everything I did in the course of two combat tours was recorded, time-stamped. I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed. And I felt it vital 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 gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed. Naturally, I’d have preferred not to have that number on my military CV, on my mind, but by the same token I’d have preferred to live in a world in which there was no Taliban, a world without war. Even for an occasional practitioner of magical thinking like me, however, some realities just can’t be changed."
Harry's memoir, Spare, came out today and has immediately dominated headlines. The royal tell-all contains numerous surprising revelations, including how Queen Camilla reportedly leaked stories about her stepsons Harry and William and how Harry found out Queen Elizabeth died from the BBC.
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