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Why Harry Got Dumped
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Andrew Parsons / AP Photo
Princess Diana’s biographer Andrew Morton diagnoses why party girl Chelsy Davy left the man she knew would never be king.
Prince Harry, the fun one, is in Chelsy mourning, dumped after five years by his blonde bombshell girlfriend who, by all accounts, got tired of waiting around for the laddish games to stop. Nor did she see much future hanging around for the next couple of years for him to finish his training as a helicopter pilot.
With her departure goes any chance of the House of Windsor becoming the House of Fun again. Alas we are stuck with earnest William, who grows more dour and Charles-like by the day, and his apparent choice, Kate Middle of the Road, a girl pleasant and blameless to the point of being earnestly dull.
Harry can take some comfort in the fact that he is not the first, nor will he be the last prince, to be cursed by his birth.
Harry was always the leavening one in the royal family, the cute redheaded mischief-maker who was naughty, cheeky and never looked like he was taking life too seriously. While he was having a laugh, poor William braced his shoulders for all the hopes and dreams of the centuries to fall. “When I grow up I want to be a policeman and look after mummy,” William once said to his brother. “You can’t,” replied Harry impishly. “You’ve got to be king.”
Alas, though, Harry got haughty. First he was caught out when he wore a Nazi uniform for a fancy dress party and didn’t realize that the public didn’t get the joke. More recently he had to issue a public apology after a video was posted on a tabloid website which showed him calling one of his Army colleagues a "Paki" and another a “towelhead.” Both are deemed terms of racial abuse—struggling celebrities have been thrown out of TV’s Big Brother house for less. If this was Harry trying to be one of the lads—the video also showed him making a mock phone call to the Queen—it revealed he inhabited a different social landscape to most of modern Britain. Certainly it was strange talk for a lad who was reportedly heartbroken to be called back from Afghanistan, because it meant leaving “his boys” behind.
Therein perhaps lay the problem for our Chelsy girl—not only is he all about the lads, embarrassing her by accepting lap dances and snogging barmaids whilst out on the town with his colleagues—such casual racism might not strike warmth in the heart of a girl from Cape Town, a city where apartheid was a daily reality.
While supportive of each other, William and Harry have always been two sides of the royal coin, Harry inheriting the reckless, devil-may-care Spencer streak, William exhibiting the Hanoverian bloodline, all purpose and duty. The women they chose have turned out to be equally opposite. Chelsy, daughter of an Zimbabwean safari entrepreneur, seemed like the perfect foil to Harry’s wild ways—a party girl, cool and casual, photographed in bikinis on sunny, fun-filled holidays. By contrast, Kate Middleton sported sensible shoes and mid-calf skirts. To look at them, Kate would appear to be the studious and strong type determined to be known for more than her man.
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Andrew Morton is one of the world's best-known biographers. His groundbreaking biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, is a modern classic. while his latest bestseller, on Tom Cruise, has made headlines around the world. Morton’s portrait of Monica Lewinsky revealed the young woman behind the blue dress, while his biography of Madonna nailed the myths and legends surrounding her controversial life.
"Harry can take some comfort in the fact that he is not the first, nor will he be the last prince, to be cursed by his birth."
When and if Harry ever decides he can no longer endure the "curse" of princedom, I'd be happy to step in.
Andrew Morton you are, appropriately enough, a royal twat. No one with half a sense of reality could possibly read anything with your name on it without realizing they're being given a good yarn with only the most tangential relationship to the truth.
Andrew Morton's writing has somewhat improved since the Diana days, but it is now wholly of the movie magazine fantasy variety--she could have been thinking..., he might well have been thinking..., he may have wanted to...., it seems that.... His writing screams please don't sue me for making this up. The only time he had something of real value was when Diana gave him the goods on Charles.
I think you are all missing the news here. Marrying a wealthy man is a noble calling for many, and there's a fresh prince on the loose. Seems to have a few bob, a big house to call home, likes to be away a lot (so much less muss and fuss) and is fairly handsome for a Brit. Plus, "fun". The in-laws are a bit dodgy but you can't have everything. I think this opens a whole new era of worthy royal-watching.
"Harry inheriting the reckless, devil-may-care Spencer streak"
I'd argue that he inherited the "reckless, devil-may-care Hewitt streak".
Nobody cares. Except the British.
Good for Chelsy on all fronts. We love a girl with the balls to ditch a prince.
Heads up WAGs. There's a job opening.
"Princess Diana's biographer" - I thought that was Tina Brown?
To be young, blonde, rich and a party animal in the UK today! There will never be enough alcohol to fill that emptiness.
I love royal-watching, but it is like watching a foreign-language soap with no sound - there is only so much you can get from looking at the pictures. I do think that Prince Harry is 'one of the boys' in so many ways, and that he will regularly put his foot in it because that is what boys do. But he is also serious about his responsibilities to his men, and to his brother. For now, that ought to be enough. Spat his hand when he gets out of line and let it go. These two young men have had more than their share of burden and grief in their young lives. Expectations of some form of perfection are just so much garbage.
I send my thanks to the Royal Family and Mr. Norton for this bit of entertaining fluff.
My father was from Leeds (in fact, a graduate of Leeds University before he became a barrister). I was born in Leeds so I share Mr. Morton's appreciation for Leeds.
When I learned that London's suicide bombers were from Leeds, it reaffirmed what my father had always said that, people will do anything to get out of Leeds.
Hello Andrew, Just curious: are you a royalist or a republican? I ask, because in yesterday's interview with Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, Mr Radcliffe mentioned that, though he did not personally dislike the royals, he was a republican. Obviously, YOU have a fondness for Diana... but what do you, personally, think about the institution of royalty? Does it still have a function (other than living history) in the 21st century?
I hope his abused dogs dump him too. Clearly he's a kid with problems, the least of which, I suspect, is his princedom.
Oh plllluueasseee! She'll be back, she's just playing her end game to get a ring. It's a woman thing and besides he's a friggin' prince.
Poor writing. Although I enjoy the topic, this article is painful to read.
You know, I was expecting so very little from this article, and yet it still came in well below expectations.
Leeds indeed; and Ilkley; and Yorshire where my daughter got her Masters and I got my Bsc and played hockey for the county as a Dutchman.
What a waste of bandwidth. (Used to be newsprint. None of that here.) It sort of brings this site to the level of "E". I kind of liked the intellectual newsy style. Too much more of this and....
Get it right Andrew - Harry called his friend a raghead, not a towelhead.
Didn't we fight a war or something so we wouldn't have to bother about the royal family??
Thank you.
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