Patti Davis, Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s daughter, begged Prince Harry: keep quiet or you’ll regret it, just like I did.
Unfortunately, he paid no heed and went ahead and wrote the book that is now making him a pariah in the UK and killing any chance of reconciliation with his family as he is daily reviled in the press for selling out his loved ones.
Patti Davis has been there and done that. She herself wrote a scathing book about her parents, “The Way I See It”, in 1992, when she was 40, and it tore her family apart.
Unlike the Royal Family, the Reagans issued a statement at the time of the publication: “We are saddened and pained by stories in the most recent book by our daughter, Patti Davis. It contains many hurtful and shocking claims including charges of physical mistreatment and substance abuse which, for the record, are absolutely false. We have always loved Patti and hope the day will come when she rejoins the family. Toward that end, we see no useful purpose for further comment.”
In retrospect, Davis wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times, “My justification in writing a book I now wish I hadn’t written … was very similar to what I understand to be Harry’s reasoning. I wanted to tell the truth, I wanted to set the record straight. Naïvely, I thought if I put my own feelings and my own truth out there for the world to read, my family might also come to understand me better”.
Davis said in the editorial that she apologized to her father during the earlier stages of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis “when he still had lucid moments.”
She recalled that he wasn’t speaking much at the time, but that she knew from the look in his eyes that he understood and appreciated the gesture. It took decades to get to that point of reconciliation.
“I thought of that moment when I read that Prince Harry, in his new memoir, wrote about his father, King Charles, getting between his battling sons and saying, ‘Please, boys, don’t make my final years a misery.’ Time is an unpredictable thing,” she noted. “I had the gift of time with my father, which allowed me to apologize, even though a disease hovered between us and clouded our communication. King Charles’s words reveal a man who is aware of his mortality and who would like his offspring to be aware of it as well.”
Davis urged Harry to consider that Prince William has his own truth and perspective about the circumstances of their lives (and likely about the alleged brawl over Meghan Markle Harry exposed in excerpts that set the Internet alight last week).
“Harry has called William not only his ‘beloved brother’ but his ‘arch nemesis.’ He chose words that cut deep, that leave a scar; perhaps if he had taken time to be quiet, to reflect on the enduring power of his words, he’d have chosen differently.”
EPA/ANDY RAIN
With the hindsight of the pain she caused herself and others, Davis encouraged Harry to follow the very same “never complain, never explain” mantra that’s been ascribed to the British royal family—the mantra that he despises and accuses the family of violating by leaking stories through courtiers instead of making official statements.
“Silence gives you room, it gives you distance, and it lets you look at your experiences more completely, without the temptation to even the score,” Davis advised.” Sometime in the years ahead, Harry may look back as I did and wish he could unspeak what he has said.”
“I’ve learned something else about truth: Not every truth has to be told to the entire world,” Davis wrote. “People are always going to be curious about famous families, and often the stories from those families can resonate with others, give them insight into their own situations, even transcend time since fame flutters at the edges of eternity. But not everything needs to be shared, a truth that silence can teach. Harry seems to have operated on the dictum that ‘Silence is not an option.’ I would, respectfully, suggest to him that it is.”
