Prince Harry’s ghostwriter speaks out over alleged inaccuracies in Spare

(Image credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images and Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images/Future)

published 15 January 2023

Prince Harry's ghostwriter JR Moehringer has defended Spare after the memoir received criticism for inaccuracies.

JR Moehringer, the ghostwriter for Prince Harry's scathing memoir, Spare, has taken to Twitter following criticism that some of the book's claims were inaccurate.
The author posted a series of cryptic quotes to his Twitter, including ones from Mary Karr's book 'The Art Of Memoir' and from Prince Harry himself.
In other royal news, Prince Harry removed nearly half the content from his memoir as there were some things he did not ‘want the world to know’ and that his family would ‘never forgive’ him for.

The ghostwriter for Prince Harry's explosive memoir Spare has been defending the book on Twitter after it received criticism over inaccuracies.

One claim that has drawn controversy is Harry's declaration that he was descended from King Henry VI. Critics on social media were quick to point out that this is impossible as King Henry VI only had one son, Edward of Westminster, and he died in battle aged 17 before having any children of his own.

Elsewhere in the book, Harry claimed he offered to buy Meghan Markle's father, Thomas Markle, a first class ticket from Mexico to the UK on Air New Zealand. The airline has since said that this would not be possible as it has never operated flights between Mexico and Britain.

Moehringer, 58, who is a former winner of the Pulitzer Prize for newspaper feature writing, has taken to Twitter, appearing to cryptically defend Spare against its critics. He shared a number of quotes to the platform, some from Mary Karr's book The Art Of Memoir and some from Prince Harry himself.

One quote from Spare that Moehringer shared read, "Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory, it does what it does, gathers and curates as it sees fit, and there's just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts. Things like chronology and cause-and-effect are often just fables we tell ourselves about the past."

Another said, "Landscape, geography, architecture, that's how my memory rolls. Dates? Sorry, I'll need to look them up. Dialogue? I'll try my best, but make no verbatim claims, especially when it comes to the nineties."

He then shared a quote by Mary Karr from The Art Of Memoir, "Neurologist Jonathan Mink, MD, explained to me that with such intense memories as David's, we often record the emotion alone, all detail blurred into unreadable smear."

Another quote from Karr, also shared to his Twitter, read, "The line between memory and fact is blurry, between interpretation and fact."

Through these quotes, Moehringer appears to be defending the memoir and suggesting that Prince Harry has remembered all the events in his life to the best of his memory and ability.

He has also been retweeting other people who are using the platform to defend Spare. One of the Tweets he shared read, "these 'factual errors' that have been called out aren't necessarily real errors in the context of an autobiographical account."

Before being asked to ghostwrite Prince Harry's autobiography, JR Moehringer has previously written for the likes of tennis star Andre Agassi, and has also released his own novels.

Related articles:

Explore More

Prince Harry Thomas Markle

Charlie Elizabeth Culverhouse is royal news and entertainment writer for Goodto.com. She began her freelance journalism career after graduating from Nottingham Trent University with an MA in Magazine Journalism, receiving an NCTJ diploma, and earning a First Class BA (Hons) in Journalism at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute. She has also worked with BBC Good Food and The Independent.