Tuesday 26 October 2004

The Trouble With Harry...

Prince Harry has had a difficult few weeks and, frankly, my heart goes out to him. From claims of cheating on his art A-level exam, to allegations that he received special assistance to pass the Sandhurst entrance exams, to the latest dust-up involving a fight with the paparazzi, his life has become the tabloids’ favorite fodder.  And it’s not just the tabloids; respected newspapers like the Times, the Guardian and the Independent have all weighed in too, with headlines like “Has Harry gone Rogue?” and worse.  

The public has followed suit. All across the internet, from Usenet groups to message boards, people are commenting on Harry’s personality, actions and future. The majority of observers have been sympathetic or understanding, but an increasingly vocal number of people seem to view Harry with scorn and contempt.  I’m not talking about those who have always thought the monarchy was a waste of time and money; I’m talking about monarchists who generally respect the institution.  

Some of the opinions I’ve come across argue that Harry is “spoilt” and arrogant; that he was courting trouble in being in a popular nightclub where the paparazzi lie in wait, and should have known better; and that he’s becoming a disgrace. Other people put the blame on paparazzi or Prince Charles, before concluding – like the rest– that Harry’s become a disgrace. Then we have a small group which feels that Harry’s done nothing wrong at all, because boys will be boys.   

I don’t really agree with any of these positions, although I see some merit in bits and pieces of them. So I thought I’d examine a few of the arguments regarding Harry’s recent difficulties, before giving my opinion of the real problem at hand.  

It’s Harry’s fault because he was asking for it.

One of the most frequent arguments that I’ve come across is that Harry was at fault from the onset because he chose to go to a celebrity nightclub where he knew the paparazzi would be lying in wait.  

I can’t begin to fathom this line of reasoning because it seems to demand that one should curtail one's life just because the paparazzi are likely to be around. First, the paparazzi are likely to follow Harry regardless of where he goes, a celebrity nightclub or Marks & Sparks. That’s the sad reality for celebrities or royalty today, particularly royalty in Britain.  

Second, the argument --- taken to a logical extreme --- would seem to imply that a royal is fair game for any media intrusion the minute they leave their house. The theory also seems to echo the same rationale heard in some rape cases where the defense blames the victim by alleging that they “asked for it.”  It’s a ridiculous argument, in my opinion, in both instances.  

It’s Charles’ fault.

Another comment that comes up concerning the nightclub fracas is that Prince Charles should be controlling his son better.  I’m not Prince Charles’ biggest admirer but I can’t see how he’s to blame for things either. Teenagers are hardly the easiest individuals to “control,” and Harry is almost a man.  What’s Prince Charles to do, ground him and put him to bed without supper? Tell his PPOs (Personal Protection Officers) to take away his drinks or cart him off to bed before the midnight hour? I don’t think so…. 

A slightly more compelling argument is that Prince Harry might not be in these straits if Prince Charles hadn’t been so lenient and indulgent when his son was small.   I can see merit in that argument only up to a point. Prince Harry has always been an energetic, outgoing boy with a much less conservative streak than his older brother. Perhaps he would have benefited from the strict discipline that his mother often imposed.  

Or perhaps not. Sometimes, an extremely exacting, stern approach can backfire, leading the child to even greater rebellion and wildness. Given Prince Harry’s personality, it’s not entirely impossible that he would have reacted this way if Charles had been more severe. 

We will never know what might have been, but I don’t think that means we should assume it was Charles’ fault. In fact, I think it’s unfair to second-guess him at this late date. We didn’t walk in his shoes that day in 1997, when he accompanied his grieving children behind Diana’s coffin, draped with flowers and topped by Prince Harry’s painfully raw, emotional goodbye note. How could any father not choose to do what he truly and sincerely thought was best under those circumstances? 

In my opinion, and this is coming from someone who isn’t particularly keen on the man, Prince Charles can’t be faulted for choosing a gentle approach towards two young boys who’d just lost their beloved mother.  Indeed, such an approach was probably wise on some levels, given the fact that the boys were fully aware of the antagonistic relationship that had existed between their parents.  If, as reports have it, that relationship had eased into a more amicable one at the time of Diana’s death, that still didn’t alter the need for Charles to tread gingerly. Not only had his sons had suffered an incredible loss but one of them – Harry – may well have known the allegation that his father wanted a daughter and was disappointed at his birth.  

There is also the fact that Charles probably remembered how his parents raised him. Rightly or wrongly, Charles blames his parents and the strict, impersonal childhood he experienced for a world of injuries. It’s quite likely that Charles wanted to avoid his parents’ purported mistakes by choosing the exact opposite parenting style when it came to his own children.  

These factors might explain Charles’ handling of his sons immediately after Diana’s death, but was it foolish to continue upon that path in the intervening years? I’m wary of making a judgement on this point since Prince Charles and his sons are in such a unique position.  However, my instinctual feeling is yes, Charles needed to take off the kid gloves and exercise some tough love.  Most people know about the cannabis incident when Prince Harry was 18, but what many people don’t know is that Harry had begun drinking quite seriously far before then. Although the drinking age in Britain is 18, Harry had been caught drinking in his local pub when he was 15. In fact, he’d drunk so much that he’d been barred from the premises after vomiting all over the bar and swearing at the chef. It wasn’t the first time that Harry went too far in his drinking and, as we know now, it wasn’t the last time either.  

We don’t know how Prince Charles responded but, whatever it was, it doesn’t seem to have been very effective. A few years later the pot incident occurred and, this time, we did learn of Prince Charles’ response. A scoop by the tabloid newspaper, The News of the World, announced that Prince Charles had sent Harry to visit a rehab clinic to observe the dangers of drug use:

"Worried Charles chose to 'terrify' Harry away from drugs by sending him to therapy sessions with hard-core heroin addicts," the paper reported. A "family friend" declared reassuringly that "he has never done drugs since".

There was just one problem with this touching morality tale: Prince Harry's visit to the Featherstone Lodge in south London took place before the drug-taking exposed by the News of the World.

In his first-ever newspaper interview, Mark Bolland, the Prince of Wales's former spin doctor, admits that the sequence of events in the story was distorted to portray Charles in a positive light and attempt to draw a line under the scandal.

Ian Katz, “What came first for Prince Harry, the clinic or the drugs?” at http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,1071826,00.html  

So much for tough love.  

Or is that being unfair? Should Prince Charles be blamed for a boy’s experimentation with drinking and pot? Almost all teenagers try alcohol or pot at some point; it doesn’t mean they’ll grow up to be an alcoholic or an addict. The line between experimentation and addiction is one of degree and, without the benefit of hindsight, does a parent always know at the time that the line has been crossed? Furthermore, how do we know that Prince Charles didn’t try other methods, privately, which is the manner by which the royals usually deal with their personal problems or issues?  

I don’t pretend to know the answer to these questions and, without more information, I feel uncomfortable making judgements. However, as a general rule and excepting cases of serious sexual or physical abuse, I think that one can’t blame a parent for everything. In the case of Charles’ children, there are so many competing, external factors shaping their lives that it seems particularly unfair to blame him for everything. 

It’s the paparazzis’ fault and Harry did nothing wrong.

An equally extreme, myopic argument is that Prince Harry did nothing wrong at all. This seems to be the position of Prince Charles’ press office which released a statement over the weekend that Prince Harry was not going to apologize because the “pushy” paparazzi were solely to blame. 

Clarence House is not alone in its opinion.  From letters to the press to opinions posted on the internet, more than one person has dismissed any criticism of the young prince with an indulgent “boys will be boys” attitude.  One poster on a royalty message group even went so far as to say that Harry was just a young boy and nothing he does should be taken seriously until he’s about 30 or 35 when he’s a real adult.   

I sat up in disbelief at the latter statement because it seemed to imply that Prince Harry shouldn’t be held accountable for any of his actions until he’s 35. I don’t know about you, but I stopped being a child far before the age of 35; I certainly was held responsible for my conduct before that age, and I think Prince Harry should be too. 

I think it’s undisputed that the paparazzi are not poster children for saintly conduct. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have every minute detail of my life become grist for public criticism and scrutiny. I certainly can’t fathom how difficult it would be to deal with such pressure if my mother had died when I was young because of such media intrusion.  

Be that as it may, Harry should have exercised greater restraint in the events of the other night. He’s been born into a position of incredible privilege; and the greater the privilege, the greater the provocations and, consequently, the greater the need for self-control. It may be unfair but – like the paparazzi – it’s a fact of his life. 

It’s also a fact which he needs to accept once and for all, before his reputation is irrevocably tarnished. Harry may think that he’s just having a spot of harmless fun like all the other boys his age but he’d be a fool if he did. He is not like other boys.  

In fact, he’s not even a child in the one area that matters: the media’s agreement to leave him alone. Unlike his brother who is still up at university and, thus, off-limits to the press, Harry’s media protection ended the minute he left Eton in 2003. http://tinyurl.com/66knr  

As a result, every small thing he does now further contributes to an image that he may never be able to shake. What he may see as some harmless fun with Page Six floozies or a simple night clubbing becomes one more nail in the coffin of his reputation.  

Adding to the problem is the fact that the public has a very short attention span. In this world of sound bites, it won’t matter if spin-doctors laboriously explain away each incident; in the end, the public will only remember the screaming tabloid headlines. More often than not, those headlines will be negative. That’s the reality of the newspaper business where scandal sells.  

The greater concern, therefore, is the self-perpetuating, vicious cycle that will ensue if Harry gets a bad reputation as the hostile, shiftless, playboy prince. The tabloids benefit when Harry loses control, thus giving the paparazzi an incentive to set him up. They did so with his mother, calling her some absolutely filthy names, just to trigger a response, and berating her even further if she didn’t give it. At some point or another, everyone breaks. Diana did, and so did Harry last week.  

So, for the tabloids to get their headlines and sales increase, the paparazzi just has to keep pushing. Harry will eventually have enough, which will lead to behavior that further feeds into the image the media has created for him; and around and around we go, ending up with a firebrand whom the press can needle to breaking point whenever there is a slow news day.   

That won’t be the only result. Eventually, the constant drip, drip, drip of negative headlines will erode the public’s goodwill. There is an incredible amount of public affection for Prince Harry, generated by memories of that devastated little boy walking behind his mother’s coffin. But Harry has grown up and continuous negative publicity has already started to change the public’s perception of him. A self-fulfilling negative image might destroy the public’s affection completely. 

Can Harry ever win against the press? Probably not, although a successful career in the Army might help. What he can do is to limit the vicious cycle – as much as possible – by not contributing to the image that the media would like to create and actually needs to create in order to fuel sales.  

Can he do it? Well, Prince William seems to have managed that difficult balancing act, and he shares a similar loathing for the media. In fact, a recent Guardian article showed that Prince William was the subject of twice as many photos in their archives as Prince Harry. Yet, he’s managed to restrain his temper without physically retaliating against the media.  

However, Prince William is very different from his younger brother. Part of the reason may lie in the princes’ respective ages when Diana died. Harry was only 12 years old, whereas William was 14. While the two years may not seem like much, it’s an enormous gap in terms of developmental psychology and a child’s coping mechanisms. 

There are other reasons too. As the future king, William was the focus of “The Firm’s” concern; and as a gorgeous teenager, he was the favorite of hordes of screaming young girls. In fact, William was so handsome that his mother nicknamed him “DDG” (Drop Dead Gorgeous). She treated him as her confident, as well as a young adult. All these things may have been a burden as much as they were a blessing, but they also imbued William with a confidence which his brother lacked.  

Harry with his pixyish face was never called “DDG” or seen as a teenager pin-up. Instead, he was called the bastard child of James Hewitt. The vicious rumour persists to this day, even though the timeline of events completely negates this possibility. It must have hurt Harry tremendously. It’s been said that, at Eton, Harry “was made to react with anger and hurt simply by whispering, at the bottom of some Wall Game pile-up, the one word: ‘Hewitt’.” http://tinyurl.com/5vxb3 Equally painful must have been his mother’s charge in the “War of the Wales,” that Charles was so disappointed by the birth of another son that it effectively led to the end of their marriage. If Harry was taunted by the Hewitt rumour, I’m sure he would have heard this allegation as well. 

Living “in the shadow of his more glamorous” brother and hiding these wounds, Harry became a little “terror” who “overcompensated by making himself the centre of attention.” http://tinyurl.com/4k4mx  Then, his beloved mother died. At the time, Harry was reportedly far closer to his mother than to his father. I’m not saying that Harry didn’t love his father; I think he did and he still does, probably more than ever. I’m merely saying that, in 1997, Harry was closer to his mother.    

For the reasons listed above, Harry probably had a much harder time dealing with Diana’s death than William. William obviously suffered too but he seems to have the emotional tools or the personality to handle it better. Which brings me to what I think is the real problem with Harry… 

The Real Trouble With Harry

In my opinion, Harry’s personality is much more sensitive, high-strung and troubled than his relaxed, friendly, good-humoured facade would indicate. In fact, Harry seems a lot like his mother, a comparison which he himself has made in recent interviews about his AIDS and charity work. Unfortunately, that similarity may extend beyond charity work and to more worrisome areas.  

Diana was a woman of extremes; simultaneously passionate, fragile, sensitive and free-spirited.  Just as she felt things to the extreme, she sometimes did things to the extreme too. That’s not always a bad thing but, in her case, it led to such harmful behavior as bulimia and self-cutting as a way to ease her pain. Thankfully, Diana received the help she needed and found new, more positive ways to fill the emptiness.  

I think Harry is following in Diana’s footsteps and, like Diana, he needs serious help. In his case, it’s alcohol, not food. Harry seems to have gone far, far beyond being a social drinker, even by teenage standards.  Reports of his drinking routinely include descriptions that he became so “leathered” that he needed assistance getting up, not to mention getting home. Accounts of his nightly intake include vodka, beer, tequila, all combined. And this happens night after night.  

I’m simply baffled by the fact that no-one in the press or public is mentioning the serious nature of Harry’s drinking, and calling for something to be done about it. For his own sake. Harry’s drinking is like some sort of 900-lb elephant in the room; everyone gingerly treads around it and, occasionally, makes a quick, veiled comment about it, before running away. In a world where the British tabloids have not hesitated to comment on every one of his other perceived flaws, I’m floored by the fact that people are so hesitant to bring up this one up.  

I’m sure someone will be quick to retort that Harry’s drinking is typical of other teenagers but I strongly disagree. First, let me say that I’m not a puritan teetotaller who opposes all drinking. In fact, I grew up in France where there is essentially no drinking age whatsoever. On the books, it’s 16 but it might as well not have existed when I was growing up. Teenagers routinely drank on nights out and, because it wasn’t forbidden or restricted by law, it wasn’t really a big deal.  Of course, there was always some-one who drank so much as to get vilely sick, but my point is that European teenagers have a much more relaxed, indifferent attitude towards alcohol than their counterparts in such countries as America. Part of the reason is that the drinking age in America is 21 and, as a result, alcohol itself is the focal point of a night out. Perhaps the best way to explain it is that, in America, teenagers seem to view drinking as the whole point of a night out; in Europe, going out is the main focus, with alcohol being an incidental part that is taken for granted.

In the case of Prince Harry, his drinking has become too heavy to be dismissed as typical teenage behavior. Harry allegedly started drinking at 14 with occasional glasses of vodka, here and there; by the age of 17, there were reports of him drinking 6 bottles of Smirnoff Ice – the equivalent of 9 shots of vodka – in addition to other things, at a party where cocaine was found; in February of this year, he outlasted Prince William at Chinawhite, adding “Sex on the Beach” cocktails to the mix of vodka and champagne which he’d been consuming with his brother in the preceding hours; and now he’s going out every night of the week, drinking a combination of vodka, tequila, champagne and beer. The list can go on indefinitely. It’s not just a few drinks either. Witnesses have said that Prince Harry sometimes needs assistance just to stand up or not to fall over.  

This simply is not normal behavior and people need to stop dismissing it as such. There are numerous telltale signs of someone who is either an alcoholic or close to becoming one. And alcoholism isn’t limited to adults. There have been numerous celebrities who became alcoholics at a young age.  Just a few weeks ago, Tatum O'Neal came out with a book discussing her addictions and the age at which they started out. I listened to one of her television interviews where she described her evenings out as a teenager. How she acted when she was when she was 17 sounds a lot like Harry's behavior now.

Whether it’s Tatum O’ Neal or a youthful Drew Barrymore, the common factor in many of these cases is that the person experienced loss, stress and pressure at a very early age.   Unable to cope with it, they started leading an increasingly uncontrolled, rakish lifestyle but the press or the public dismissed it with the standard, “oh, ____ is just being a teenager.” Only later was it learnt that they’d become addicted to alcohol or drugs.   

In the case of Prince Harry, people need to stop skirting around the obvious fact that he has a problem. It’s a problem that is much more serious than the question of his image or how the media treats him. And Prince Charles needs to do something, immediately. 

Sandhurst is not the solution.  The discipline may help Harry in some ways but it won’t stop his drinking. Harry’s problem seems to have gone beyond that point. Furthermore, military men are some of the hardest drinkers I know. Sandhurst officers probably aren’t any different. In fact, I read an op-ed piece just the other day which noted that Sandhurst cadets “party like mad.” Sandhurst will, therefore, be nothing more than a temporary band-aid on the problem.  It will simply, and conveniently, get Harry out of the media spotlight.  

Harry deserves much more than to be treated as a royal nuisance who must be disposed of as quickly as possible. According to an article entitled, “Prince Harry: Spare to the Throne,” that’s the awful attitude shared by some royal aides and royal watchers:

There is now a palpable sense of panic about how Harry will occupy himself until January, when he begins his army training. As a senior royal aide says, 'It would be fair to say that there is a sense here that the sooner Prince Harry is under the umbrella of the armed services and starts at Sandhurst the better.'

The consensus is that at 19 months his 'gap year' is in danger of stretching everyone's patience. 'He wants to go into the army? Well, he should go into the army and disappear. Stop going to Eurotrash nightclubs. That's his best hope,' says one royal biographer impatiently.

Harriet Lane, “Prince Harry: Spare to the Throne,” at http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,1334958,00.html.  

“Go into the army and disappear.” I think that line says it all; just go and disappear, will you?!  

Charming.  No wonder the royal biographer didn’t give their name. Frankly, I’m appalled by his or her attitude. I’m even more appalled that senior royal aides may share it. I think Harry deserves better, especially from those who serve the royal family.  

Instead of trying to shunt Prince Harry out of sight, to be left to his own devices, I think someone should step in and make sure he gets some help.  Prince Charles is the obvious candidate. Rather than have his PR flacks spin up a new fairytale regarding charity work or orphans in Lesotho, Prince Charles should send Harry to a rehab clinic. Initially, it would lead to a huge furore in the press but a brief media frenzy has to be better than this constant drip, drip, drip of damaging publicity, much of which is indirectly related to Harry’s drinking.  

A rehab clinic is the right solution for a number of reasons. First and most obviously, it would help Harry with his drinking.  

Second, it would only benefit him in the long run if he explores some of the issues which led to his reliance on alcohol in the first place. Harry’s fracas with the media showed just how much anger he’s bottled up inside him towards his mother’s harassers.   Dealing with that anger can only help Harry in the future when faced with the paparazzi. In addition, he’d learn some coping mechanisms to help him deal with the pressures of his life.  Instead of suppressing his emotions or turning to alcohol, he would learn healthier ways of handling problems.  

Third, there are the pragmatic benefits. It would generate a lot of goodwill for the young prince. Members of the public who have begun to condemn him may soften their attitude, if not change it altogether.  At the same time, people who have always criticized Prince Charles as being a bad parent would be effectively silenced. And the media might temporarily be shamed into some self-restraint, although I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting.    

Lastly, it’s probably what his mother would do if she were here today. For all her flaws, Diana loved her sons passionately. She tried to instil in them a deep sense of responsibility towards their position and the monarchy. She also was a firm believer in self-help, as she had seen the benefits of counselling in dealing with her own problems. She would never have approved of her son falling over on a public street at three in the morning, smashed beyond all dignity. She would never have stood by while he became a figure of scorn and derision.   She would have done something.  Immediately.  

Diana may not be here but, for Harry’s sake, someone else needs to step in. Soon. He deserves as much.

- pandorasbox@etoile.co.uk