Prince Harry chose the controversial title of his upcoming memoir himself and has made no changes to the book since the Queen's death, a biographer has claimed.
It has been revealed that the eagerly-anticipated memoir, which will hit shelves on January 10, will be called Spare - a nod to the phrase 'The Heir and Spare', which was used to describe Harry and his older brother Prince William.
Its publisher has described Spare as having "raw, unflinching honesty" and royal insiders have labelled the choice of title as "confrontational".
And now Omid Scobie, a friend of Harry's wife Meghan Markle and the author behind their unauthorised biography Finding Freedom, has claimed it was the prince himself who wanted to call the book Spare.
Writing in his column for Yahoo, Omid wrote: "Of course, calling the book Spare - a decision made by Prince Harry early on in the process - shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise. It’s a punchy choice, but for a word that has trailed the prince like a shadow, being the spare was one of the most defining aspects of his royal existence.
"Leaning on the derogatory moniker for a title is Harry finally owning the term after a lifetime of being called it."
The author also claims the manuscript for the book was completed five months before Harry's grandmother the Queen died in September - and that this will be acknowledged in the memoir.
He added: "There were also no last-minute rewrites or edits after the Queen’s death. Spare’s manuscript was completed almost five months before the monarch’s passing, a detail that will be acknowledged in a note at the start of the book.
Meanwhile, Omid also writes in the column that the book will not "trash" Harry's royal relatives and large parts of it will be filled with anecdotes from his time in Afghanistan and his "quest to find purpose and why he chose to commit to a lifetime of service".
An official description of the book publisher Penguin Random House claims it will take "readers immediately back to one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror".
It adds: "As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on. For Harry, this is his story at last.
"With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief."
The 416-page book, which has a striking cover image of Harry, will cost £28 for a hardback, with the audio book, voiced by Harry himself, priced at £20.
