What a pity that memoirs don’t qualify for the Bad Sex in Literature prize. If they did, the description of how Prince Harry lost his virginity in Spare would surely qualify. That sordid tale has already passed into the annals of the least sexy writing about sex imaginable, with an older woman treating the young prince like ‘a young stallion’, before parting by ‘smack(ing) (Harry’s) rump and sen(ding) (him) off to graze’.
The description of who the anonymous woman is duly sparked a media frenzy. There were rumours it was Liz Hurley, promptly denied. The woman’s identity became nearly as discussed as the Duke’s latest outburst against his family.
Sasha Walpole described the act as ‘literally wham-bam between two friends’
Now the tabloid search for Harry’s horsey lover has finally come to an end. She is Sasha Walpole, a former Highgrove groom who had – as is the way of these things – we are told, ‘a passionate five minute romp’ with the prince in July 2001 the Vine Tree Inn, a Wiltshire pub.
Walpole described the act as ‘literally wham-bam between two friends’, and says it was fuelled by alcohol. The detail that he had a ‘peachy bum’ but ‘he was young’ is likely to join the disclosures in Spare about Harry’s frost-bitten ‘todger’ in making us feel we know far too much about the Duke’s body for comfort.
However, amidst the innuendo (and, no doubt, the prurient media intrusion that Walpole will now face for some time), the story raises a more serious point than being merely a piece of teenage slap and tickle. Harry will probably be irritated by the revelations in the papers over recent days, even if he might well dismiss them as nothing more than tittle-tattle. Yet even if he is annoyed to find his love life splashed all over the tabloids once again, he only has himself to blame.
Harry will struggle to claim that the revelations are an invasion of privacy, given that the story would never have originated had he not included it in Spare in the first place. The incident in which he loses his virginity doesn’t even have any particular purpose in his book; it is retold in a few throwaway lines in the context of a completely different story. Why, then, did he include it? Harry, it appears, breached his own, much-cherished privacy for absolutely no reason. Unless, of course, he, his ghostwriter JR Moehringer, or his editors, decided that sex sells, and that the detail was worth retaining.
Harry marketed his book as a chance to reveal his side of the story. Yet it may be that this sex scene, rather than the book’s admittedly impressive sales, remains its lasting legacy. A senior non-fiction editor, with extensive experience of working on A-list celebrity memoirs, admitted to me last week that he was astonished at the inclusion of such details.
‘If I’d been editing the book, the first thing I would have said to Prince Harry is ‘do you really want to put that in there?,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t add anything and could lead to all sorts of trouble.’
That warning has now materialised, as the newspapers revel in the disclosures about a liaison in a Wiltshire field 22 years ago. The whole tawdry saga has done the Duke’s public reputation very little credit indeed.
Harry and Meghan wish to use their Netflix deal to executive-produce romantic comedies for the streaming platform, it was recently reported. Chances are that this particular incident of ‘wham-bam’ – and the humiliating, potentially disastrous legal fall-out – will not be included in them.
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