Prince Harry’s ghostwriter John Joseph Moehringer described working with the royal in an insightful essay.
The ghostwriter of Harry’s memoir Spare describes one tense moment during which the pair argued about whether to leave something in the book.
Harry wanted a clever quip he made to stay in the book because “all his life, people had belittled his intellectual capabilities.”
The comment was made by Harry during a military exercise in which he was attacked by pretend terrorists.
One of the men acting as a terrorist made a remark about the late Princess Diana, to which Harry felt he responded wittily.
The writer explained in the piece for The New Yorker: “Harry always wanted to end this scene with a thing he said to his captors, a comeback that struck me as unnecessary, and somewhat inane.
“Good for Harry that he had the nerve, but ending with what he said would dilute the scene’s meaning: that even at the most bizarre and peripheral moments of his life, his central tragedy intrudes.”
The two men argued about the passage, and Moehringer said: “Why was this one line so important? Why couldn’t he accept my advice? We were leaving out a thousand other things—that’s half the art of memoir, leaving stuff out—so what made this different? Please, I said, trust me. Trust the book.”
The heated exchange left Harry silently “glaring into the camera”. But finally, the prince explained why it was so important to him.
Moehringer recalls Harry wanted to leave the clever remark in because people had “belittled” his intelligence.
He wrote: “Finally, he exhaled and calmly explained that all his life, people had belittled his intellectual capabilities, and this flash of cleverness proved that, even after being kicked and punched and deprived of sleep and food, he had his wits about him.”
Harry’s intelligence has been remarked upon in public forums in the past. Late last year Carol Vorderman made a remark about the royal’s intellect on This Morning.
She said: “(Meghan) is super intelligent – he is nowhere near as intelligent or as intelligent as her.”
Lad Colin Campbell has made similar remarks, telling New! magazine: “In my opinion, Harry is a much less intelligent character than Meghan is.”
A scandal over school grades plagued the Prince in earlier years. In 2003 he was accused of cheating in his GCSEs by a teacher at Eton College but was cleared of the allegation.
Harry wrote in Spare: “An art teacher came forward with evidence of cheating, which turned out not to be evidence of cheating.
“It turned out to be evidence of nothing at all, and I was later cleared by the exam board. But the damage was done. The accusation stuck.”
In Spare, he recalled being called “Prince Thicko” after the allegations were made.
Harry passed two A levels, achieving a B in art and a D in geography.
A statement from Kensington Palace at the time read: “Prince Harry achieved two A-level passes and is now able to continue to pursue his ambition of a career in the Army.
“The Prince of Wales is delighted with his son’s achievement: ‘I am very proud of Harry. He has worked hard for these examinations and I am very pleased with today’s results.’
“Prince Harry is currently making plans for his gap year, further details of which will be made available next month.”
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