Did Prince Harry have a ghostwriter? Alleged inaccuracies controversy explored

Prince Harry's new memoir, Spare, was released on January 10, 2023, and has already become a best-seller with shattering sales records.

However, days after its release, the book's ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer, came to its defense after it was slammed for printing alleged inaccuracies in the timeline of events.

Spare, which details bombshell events and politics inside the Royal Family, garnered criticism for printing inaccurate details about the events surrounding Prince Harry's life.

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Which inaccuracies were slammed online in Prince Harry's book?

Prince Harry's Spare noted four alleged inaccuracies that triggered its readers. One of the alleged errors that readers noted was where Prince Harry was when The Queen Mother passed away. In the book, the Duke of Sussex claimed that he was at Eton College at the time when he heard that his great-grandmother had passed away.

However, several news reports state that he was on a skiing trip with Prince William and King Charles in Switzerland.

The second alleged error in Spare was Harry noting that his mother, Princess Diana, gifted him an Xbox on his 13th birthday, which was in 1997. However, the gaming console was released in 2001.

The third alleged inaccuracy was who Prince Harry's ancestors were. In his book, the 38-year-old noted that Henry VI was his “great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.” However, he only had one heir, Edward of Westminster, who died in 1471 during the Battle of Tewkesbury.

The fourth alleged inaccuracy was when the Duke of Sussex claimed that he offered to buy a first-class ticket for Meghan Markle's father, Thomas, to take a flight from Mexico to the UK via Air New Zealand.

However, according to The New Zealand Herald, the airline stated that it does not operate airlines between Mexico and Britain.

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J.R. Moehringer came to Spare's defense

Although the inaccuracies were minor, J.R. Moehringer took to his Twitter handle to share cryptic posts that seemingly defended Harry's book.

He posted quotes from The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr, which talks about memory and autobiography being subjected to emotional distortion and blurry memories.

One of the posts read:

"The line between memory and fact is blurry, between interpretation and fact. There are inadvertent mistakes of those kinds out the wazoo."

He also shared several excerpts from Harry's book, Spare, defending the stance of the book. He has been sharing other people's tweets defending Spare's inaccuracies.

J.R. Moehringer is a renowned novelist who has previously written the memoirs for tennis star Andre Agassi and Nike's co-founder Phil Knight. His own memoir, The Tender Bar, was made into a motion picture that starred Ben Affleck.

According to Page Six, he was paid "at least" $1 million in advance for working on Spare.