Princess Diana’s butler is not happy with how he was categorized in Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare. The memoir details Harry’s life growing up, the impact of his mother’s death, a sibling rivalry with Prince William, his love story with Meghan Markle, and how their romance led to the final crack in his relationship with the Royals. But there’s one thing that offended Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s former butler. “There was something else which annoyed me intensely,” Burrell tells Marie Claire. “I was really upset, really upset [by] the fact that he referred to me as ‘the butler,’ ‘mummy’s butler.’ Well, mummy’s butler was called Paul, Harry, and you knew me, all your life you’ve known me as Paul.” He added: “He had never known me as ‘the butler’ so why suddenly has there been a shift only recently, a shift to being called the butler? Suddenly I’m sort of being dismissed by this petulant prince as irrelevant because he says my tell-all book told nothing.”
Burrell has also released memoirs based on his time spent with the Royals. He published A Royal Duty in 2000 and The Way We Were: Remembering Diana in 2006.
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Of Harry’s current image, he says: “I have to be very positive all the time about this and say, ‘Harry, you’re wrong, you are wrong on several levels. You are wrong because you have forgotten duty, respect, loyalty. Not only to your family but to our country and to the people of our country.”
He added: “I don’t think the people of our country like that very much. I wouldn’t worry about the media if he came back here, I’d worry about the people on the street because they have a say also, and I’ve always said that the monarchy and our Royal Family have a very privileged life and live in a very privileged way where anything is at their disposal. The price they pay for that is public service. Well for Harry, that’s sort of gone now, the public service has finished, and he’s swapped royalty for celebrity.”
Spareย is the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time. It sold over 3 million copies in its first week of release.ย
