Yes to James Corden, no to Queen Elizabeth – who Harry thanked in Spare... and why

Behind every great man, there’s…. Well, in Prince Harry’s case there are 146 people, all named in the acknowledgements of his autobiography, Spare, published today (January 10) along with a few assorted “teams” and gangs of “mates”.

After you have made your way through his life story, there is a lengthy homage to the friends, ghostwriters, choice celebrities and wellness coaches who are Harry’s helpers. As the man himself says: “The length of this list alone leaves me deeply humbled”. Think the thank-you section of a wedding speech in overdrive – he even thanks the editors and fact checkers who worked on the book (92, to be exact).

Members of the Royal family have been omitted – even the late Queen – but he thanks his wife, children and mother-in-law, as well as 16 professionals, medical experts and coaches who he credits with keeping him “physically and mentally strong.” Four of them are chiropractors. There’s also a shout out for his UK therapist “for helping me resolve years of unresolved trauma”.

So what does the list reveal about the Duke’s inner sanctum?

The big names

Nothing delights Harry more than a new celebrity friend – witness his glee when Meghan receives a text message from Beyoncé in the Netflix documentary. The acknowledgements, then, are starry. Harry thanks Oprah Winfrey for her “unwavering friendship and support.” She gets a few mentions in the book, too. Harry doesn’t see how the interview that he and Meghan gave to the talk-show host is “any different from what my family and their staff had done for decades – briefing press on the sly… and the books on which they’d co-operated, starting with Pa’s 1994 crypto autobiography with Jonathan Dimbleby”.

Harry is nothing if not #grateful as they say in California, and British celebrities are not forgotten. You might think Oprah landed the exclusive interview slot with the Sussexes, but James Corden technically pipped her to the post. The television host and actor took Prince Harry on an open-top bus tour round Los Angeles for The Late Late Show in February 2021. They have a friendship dating back several years: Corden attended the couple’s blockbuster wedding in 2018. Corden and his wife have also visited the Sussexes at home in California with their children for a play date.

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is also in the Brits-in-California circle. He lives near Harry in Malibu and gets a special mention. Prince Harry met Martin in 2014 when Coldplay wrote a song for the inaugural Invictus Games (the games are a motif throughout the book, with each of its three parts named after a line from the poem Invictus by Victorian poet William Ernest Henley).

Tyler Perry also gets a name-check. The American filmmaker played a crucial role in the Sussexes’ relocation to California by offering them his $18 million Beverly Hills home and security protection. He became friends with the Duchess in the run-up to the Royal wedding in 2018 via a handwritten letter that said Perry was “praying for [her]”.

The professionals

Top of Harry’s list of Hollywood healers is John Amaral, a Los Angeles-based “energy practitioner” who says his “Energy Flow Formula” can heal depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. One 90-minute VIP session costs $2,500 (£2,060). He is a trained chiropractor and appeared in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Netflix series about alternative medicine, The Goop Lab.

Harry is also thankful to the acupuncturist Ross Barr, who is based in London and is so beloved by him and Meghan that he was invited to their wedding. He specialises in fertility and women’s health and has spoken about how acupuncture helped him when he was 20, after his father’s sudden death.

Also acknowledged is Lesley Parkinson, a clinical psychologist who specialises in “neuro-psychophysiology”. She runs a clinic in London that offers treatments including “neurofeedback brain training” and “cranial electrotherapy stimulation” to treat mental health issues and improve brain performance.

Harry’s personal trainer is an old friend. Winston Squire coaches the England Polo Team and was photographed at a charity polo match with the Duke in 2011. Squire has been described as the Duke’s “personal fitness consultant.” The Prince also tops up this regime with exercises designed by Jessie Blum, the founder of Heartcore, a boutique chain of London Pilates studios. Blum discovered Pilates while living in LA and describes herself as a “wild child” who “grew up in the forest on horseback.”

Harry seems to suffer from back pain, but luckily he has a top team on it. Eric Goodman is one of his chiropractors. He is the creator of Foundation Training, a specific routine of yoga-like exercises for treating chronic back pain, and has a string of professional sports people and celebrities as clients.

Dr Ben Carraway, a chiropractor to the stars who reportedly counts Sir Richard Branson among his clients, is also mentioned in Harry’s thank-you list. He has been described as a “leading non-surgical back-pain specialist” and runs a private practice in central London.

The ghostwriter

The acknowledgements give an insight into the process behind this book. Ghostwriter JR Moehringer is described as “my collaborator and friend, confessor and sometime sparring partner”. Moehringer, “spoke to me so often and with such deep conviction about the beauty (and sacred obligation) of memoir”. It’s a serious business.

The old friends

Prince Harry offers “love and thanks” to a list of friends who “helped jog my memory or else restored important details lost in the haze of youth.” The first are Tania Jenkins and Mike Holding, documentary makers who became Harry’s “beloved second family” on visits to Botswana. The couple run AfriScreen, a nature documentary production company that made programmes for the BBC TV series Planet Earth.

Many of the friends mentioned were at Harry and Meghan’s wedding. Mark Dyer, a former equerry to King Charles, was appointed as a mentor to Harry after the death of Princess Diana. He became a close friend and surrogate father figure to the young Prince. The Duke was an usher at Dyer’s wedding in 2010, and he returned the favour at Harry’s wedding to Meghan in 2018. Harry is godfather to Dyer’s son, Jasper.

Some are just mentioned by first name. “Thomas and Charlie” are likely to be Thomas and Charles van Straubenzee, close friends of both Prince William and Harry from their school days. The elder brother, Thomas, features elsewhere in the book. Harry alleges that his role as Prince William’s best man was a “bare-faced lie” and it was actually van Straubenzee and another mutual friend, James Meade, who gave the traditional best man speech for William.

Others are just part of a general gang of pals. He thanks his “mates in the UK, who have stuck by me… thank you for everything,” although he acknowledges they “may not have seen it all clearly as it was happening.” He adds: “Next round’s on me.”

The army shaped Harry and he has “special gratitude” for his two colour sergeants from Sandhurst, Glenn Haughton and Spencer Wright. As the public’s opinion of the Duke and Duchess soured, Haughton, 50, defended Harry on Twitter, saying he was a, “selfless, loving father, brother and son [who] has given so much of his life to better the lives of others.”

The family

While his grandmother Queen Elizabeth, the King and the Prince and Princess of Wales aren’t mentioned, “stand out thanks” go to Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Lady Jane Fellowes and Earl Charles Spencer – listed as “my mother’s siblings” – for their “love, support, time and perspective.”

The biggest thanks is reserved for his children Archie, three, and Lili, one; Doria Ragland, Harry’s mother-in-law (“aka Grandma” as he calls her in the acknowledgements) and, above all, Meghan. Harry writes: “This book would’ve been impossible (logistically, physically, emotionally, spiritually) without you.”