Prince Harry appears "keen to retreat" and bears a "haunted eye expression" in snaps showing him walking his dog amid the leak of his memoir Spare, an expert has said.
Harry was spotted near his home in California on Wednesday lunchtime, just hours before extracts of his book were leaked.
So far it has emerged that Harry claims in the book that he had an altercation with brother Prince William, where he was knocked to the floor, breaking a dog's bowl.
Other leaks report that Harry admits to taking drugs and begged his father King Charles not to marry Queen Consort Camilla.
During his dog walk earlier in the week, Harry could be seen wearing a knitted hat and scarf along with waterproofs as he walked with his dog Pula amid the wet weather.
And according to body language expert Judi James, these images do not show a defiant or confident duke.
She told the Mirror: "Having opened more than a six-pack can of worms with his new book, Harry appears to try to look as invisible as possible here, with his knitted hat and scarf hiding much of his face as he waits in the rain for his dog to get into the boot of the car.
"Interesting that his eyes are not on the dog here, but instead looking out or around with that haunted-looking eye expression we saw him use just before he left the UK.
"There’s no display of defiant confidence here following all the global interest. Even a Z-list celebrity would expect relentless press attention after boosting their own profile to such a level and even take their bins out dressed up and smiling for the cameras, but Harry looks keen to retreat into his own shell of privacy here.
"His posture looks hunched and his facial expression appears grim. He might just realise that even his dog is newsworthy now, thanks to the revelation about Harry’s falling onto the dog bowl and smashing it.
"As we saw during their annual ski holidays and other photo calls through the years, Harry has been brought up on the notion that, by allowing the press to get their royal shots and their headlines via some agreed poses or stories, they will be allowed relative privacy the rest of the time.
"Sadly for Harry though, his explosive ‘reveal/bare all’ technique might just have had the opposite effect."
The book, due out on January 10 and ghostwritten by JR Moehringer, comes just weeks after Harry and Meghan’s Netflix documentary, in which the duke said he was terrified when William screamed and shouted at him during a tense Sandringham summit in 2020.
The memoir is being published only four months after the death of Harry’s grandmother the late Queen and the start of his father’s reign as King and follows years of turmoil for the royal family amid the Megxit crisis, Philip’s death, accusations of racism in the Sussexes’ Oprah interview and the brothers’ long-running feud.
