The royal family has essentially reinforced their tried-and-true “never complain, never explain” PR policy in the wake of Prince Harry’s bombshell, truth-filled memoir — and largely appears to refuse to even acknowledge the book’s existence. Nevertheless, at least one royal specialist believes that was a mistake.
Alexander Larman, a royal expert, and historian, recently spoke with Us Weekly to discuss why he believes Prince William ought to have addressed the allegations made by Harry in Spare as well as used the conversation to take the high road and make significant progress towards resolving their long-standing conflict.
In an interview to promote his upcoming book, The Windsors at War: The King, His Brother, and a Family Divided, Larman stated, “I’m on record as stating that I think that they should have replied. I think Prince William should have done an interview in which he extended the hand of brotherhood.”
He ought to have stated, “We’re all extremely concerned about him. You know, we know life has been hard for him. We understand that he has a most dreadful traumatic shock when his mother [Princess Diana] died so young.”
Larman acknowledged that this goes against the “never complain, never explain” PR strategy that the royals have generally relied on for, well, ever, but he claimed that it is essentially useless trash (I’m paraphrasing) when the PR disaster at hand involves a member of the royal family who will ultimately defect entirely if they are met with a silent wall of icy stoicism from all of their closest blood relatives.
The royal family’s motto has always been, “Never complain, never explain,” and that’s worked out very well [for them], but you do wonder how well it’s going to go in the long run when a member of a royal family is not playing by the same rules as you because it was the same thing with Duke of Windsor,” he said, referring to Queen Elizabeth’s uncle, King Edward VIII, who was King until he abdicated so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.