Ghostwriter J. R. Moehringer reflected on working with Prince Harry on the royal’s memoir, Spare, in an essay for the New Yorker.
Moehringer, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of his own memoir, The Tender Bar, previously ghostwrote the memoirs Open by Andre Agassi and Shoe Dog by Phil Knight. Both books became bestsellers.
In the essay, Moehringer recalls being approached to work on Harry’s memoir. “I agreed to a Zoom,” he writes. “I was curious, of course. Who wouldn’t be? I wondered what the real story was. I wondered if we’d have any chemistry.…Still, I hesitated. Harry wasn’t sure how much he wanted to say in his memoir, and that concerned me. I’d heard similar reservations, early on, from [two] authors who’d ultimately killed their memoirs.”
Moehringer says he was convinced to write the memoir because Harry didn’t have a deadline.
“Also, I just liked the dude,” he writes. “I called him dude right away; it made him chuckle. I found his story, as he outlined it in broad strokes, relatable and infuriating.”
The process of writing the book wasn’t all smooth sailing. Moehringer recalls a late-night Zoom session with Harry that didn’t go well.
“I was exasperated with Prince Harry,” he writes. “My head was pounding, my jaw was clenched, and I was starting to raise my voice. And yet some part of me was still able to step outside the situation and think, This is so weird. I’m shouting at Prince Harry.”
Their argument was resolved, and a grinning Harry told Moehringer, “I really enjoy getting you worked up like that.”
Spare, released in January by Random House, was an instant bestseller. A critic for Kirkus called it a “harrowing, sporadically self-serving account of life in and away from the British monarchy.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
