How a ‘mistake’ in publishing a book reignited Britain’s royal racism rage
As the book rollout continues, that for Omid Scobie’s latest book about the British Royal Family: “Endgame,” has been a hot mess – showy, flashy, titillating but ultimately a bit withholding – which is to say, the norm for an allegedly all-encompassing account of the world’s most secretive, least decoded family.
The withheld part concerns an unconfirmed, thoroughly radioactive nugget that turned up in the Dutch edition of Mr Scobie’s book, published on Tuesday: the identity of two members of the royal family who once reportedly expressed concern about the skin color of the unborn child of Prince Harry and his wife Meghan.
Mr Scobie’s Dutch publisher, corrected so that the book would go back. on sale December 8. The family members are not identified in the British or American editions, which were published by HarperCollins imprints.
But the unedited version of “Endgame” was out in Amsterdam and other cities long enough for readers to buy it and for one name to circulate widely on social media (the second royal name appeared elsewhere in the book, though less was directly related to the reported incident). It all led to many headlines at a nursery school in the London tabloids on Wednesday.
“Book Calls ‘Royal Racist’,” says The Daily Mirror. “Scobie book removed because it was accidentally called ‘Royal Racist’,” The Daily Mail added. “Royals United Against ‘Mischief Making Smears’,” exclaimed The Daily Express, helpfully including a photo of King Charles III and his eldest son and heir, Prince William.
None of the British newspapers initially published the name and referred only to a ‘senior royal’. But anyone with an iPhone and Google could figure it out in less than 30 seconds. On Wednesday night, broadcaster Piers Morgan finally spilled the beans on his aptly named show ‘Piers Morgan Uncensored’. The royals in question, he said, were Charles and Catherine, Princess of Wales.
Mr Morgan said British taxpayers, who support the royal family, deserved to know what Dutch readers knew, and expressed hope that his revelation would lead to “a more open debate about this whole farrago”. Mr Morgan, whose antipathy for Meghan is well documented and was on display again on Wednesday, said he did not believe “any racist comments were made by any member of the Royal Family.”
On Thursday afternoon, The Guardian became the first British newspaper to publish the names on its website. The fact that the British press is so reticent, despite the names being broadcast on TV and all over the Internet, is a testament to both Britain’s strict libel and privacy laws and the influence the Royal Family exerts over the press. The Mail said on its front page on Thursday that Mr Morgan’s revelation would cause “outrage”.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment, as did Kensington Palace, where William and Catherine, his wife, have their offices.
The Tempest is a revealing media story, but it is also the long tail of a family psychodrama that dates back to the sensational interview that Harry and Meghan gave to Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. In it, Meghan, a biracial, American former actress, said Harry had been in conversations about his future son, Archie, in which family members expressed their concerns “how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
Meghan declined to say who, although Ms. Winfrey later ruled out Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip. In a carefully worded response at the time, the palace said “recollections may vary,” and promised to discuss Meghan’s concerns privately.
Since then, the couple seems keen to downplay the incident. It wasn’t mentioned in a six-part Netflix documentary: “Harry & Meghan”, which aired a lot more dirty laundry. Harry dodged it in “Reserve”, his otherwise unsparing memoir, and he denied suggestions of racism in his family. There is a difference, he said in an interview last January, “between racism and unconscious bias.”
This latest outburst reflects one of the strange paradoxes of royal reporting in the age of social media. Although Harry and William have lashed out at the relentless, often inaccurate reporting in the tabloid press, some of the ripest bits about the House of Windsor never appear in the papers. They lurk in the murky depths of Facebook or X, formerly known as Twitter, widely shared and easily accessible but without the Fleet Street imprimatur that the royal family both loathes and covets.
In this case, the story is further complicated by Mr. Scobie, whose previous book, “Finding Freedom,” which he co-wrote with Carolyn Durand, earned him a reputation for being very close to Harry and Meghan. Meghan, it later emerged, had authorized an aide to brief him on her side of the couple’s bitter rift.
In “Endgame,” Scobie calls himself a lone wolf operating outside of what he calls the “self-regulating group of journalists, who, like the White House press pool, follow the family in their various endeavors.” He added, “Parts of this book will burn my bridges forever,” which seems like a good guess.
Mr Scobie did not return two requests for comment.
In an interview with Dutch television, he said that he had not identified family members as making comments about skin color and that he had no idea how the names ended up in the Dutch translation. The book refers to letters between Meghan and Charles, then the Prince of Wales, in which the two discussed the issue, which Mr Scobie said led the pair to avoid bringing it up again.
The publication of the names was brought to light by Rick Evers, a Dutch royal reporter, who said he came across them while reading the book. He posted a one-page screenshot, along with an English translation, to his X account, which references letters between Meghan and Charles. A later reference to the Princess of Wales’s involvement in conversations about Archie is less specific.
Director of the publishing house, Anke Roelen, says she will investigate how the names ended up in the book. “It was a meticulous process that took months,” she says. “So we are very careful in drawing conclusions.”
Executives at Dutch publishing houses were skeptical that a translator would have added the names. “The only thing I can think of that could have happened is that the translator had translated the manuscript early on,” says Willem Bisseling, literary agent at Sebes & Bisseling. “But that’s just a guess.”
Some speculated that the libel laws had put Mr. Scobie in as tight a shackles as the press. Daniel Taylor, a media lawyer at the London firm Taylor Hampton, said the author and his publisher risked being sued for libel if the people who made the comments were “considered racist in asking the question” about the skin color of the child.
“If the names had been accidentally included in the book without sufficient evidence to support who made the allegation or the circumstances in which it was made,” Mr Taylor added, “it may have led to a decision to reject.”
Legal danger aside, the buzz is a bookseller’s dream for Mr. Scobie, especially after his book received a lackluster critical reception.
“Readers hoping for a final death blow to gossip will be disappointed,” said The New York Times said in his review. “We have already heard a lot about it. From Fergie, from Diana, from Charles, from Harry, from Harry, from Harry again.”
Claire Moses reporting contributed