Prince Harry’s ghostwriter JR Moehringer defends book after criticism over inaccuracies

The man who was Prince Harry’s ghostwriter for his memoir Spare has been defending the book online, following criticism that some of the Duke of Sussex’s claims were inaccurate.

JR Moehringer was asked to ghostwrite Harry’s autobiography Spare, after previously writing for the likes of tennis star Andre Agassi, as well as penning his own novels.

In Spare, Harry said he was descended from King Henry VI but critics have pointed out on social media that that was impossible as the king only had one son, Edward of Westminster, who died in battle aged 17 before he had any children of his own.

Also in the book, Harry claimed he offered to buy his wife Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, a first class ticket from Mexico to the UK on Air New Zealand.

But the airline has said it never operated flights between Mexico and Britain.

American Moehringer, a former winner of the Pulitzer Prize for newspaper feature writing, has shared a number of quotes on Twitter, which appear to reference criticism of inaccuracies in some aspects of Harry’s story.

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A Harry quote that Moehringer shared from the duke’s book said: “Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory, it does what it does, gathers and curates as it sees fit, and there’s just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts. Things like chronology and cause-and-effect are often just fables we tell ourselves about the past.”

He also shared a Harry quote that said: “Landscape, geography, architecture, that’s how my memory rolls. Dates? Sorry, I’ll need to look them up. Dialogue? I’ll try my best, but make no verbatim claims, especially when it comes to the nineties.”

Moehringer, 58, used a quote by Mary Karr from The Art Of Memoir that said: “Neurologist Jonathan Mink, MD, explained to me that with such intense memories as David’s, we often record the emotion alone, all detail blurred into unreadable smear.”

And another quote from Karr, also shared by Moehringer, said: “The line between memory and fact is blurry, between interpretation and fact.”

Moehringer appears to be suggesting that Prince Harry has remembered events in his life to the best of his memory and ability.

Elsewhere he retweets people who say “these “factual errors” that have been called out aren’t necessarily real errors in the context of an autobiographical account”, as well as those who say they are enjoying his work.

The prince’s autobiography, which contained bombshell revelations about the Royal Family, was leaked and sold early by some booksellers in Spain.

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On Tuesday, the book was declared the fastest-selling non-fiction book ever, selling more than 400,000 copies across hardback, ebook and audio formats on its first day of publication.

Queues of fans developed before shops opened at midnight for the official release of the controversial memoir.

Despite its explosive revelations, the duke said in his first print interview since publication that he “would like nothing more” than for his children to have relationships with the Royal Family.

He told People magazine that Archie, three, and 19-month-old Lilibet did have a connection with some of the Windsors, whom he did not name, saying this brought him “great joy”.