Princess Diana knew she had her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, “for a reason.” Giving birth to boys marked a big “change” for the British royal family, one that she saw as “fate.” Why? So there’d be “‘backup’” for the future king.
Diana saw having 2 sons as ‘fate’ so William would have ‘backup’ in Harry
In tape recording transcripts for Andrew Morton’s bombshell 1992 biography, Diana: Her True Story, released following Diana’s death, the late royal shared her view of the Duke of Sussex as the Prince of Wales’ “‘backup.’”
“Harry was supposed to be a girl,” she said (via Newsweek). “[King Charles III] was absolutely amazed, and he adores him. But I know we had two boys for a reason.”
“We were the only people in the family to have two boys,” Diana explained of her and King Charles. “The rest of the family had a boy and a girl, and we were the first to change and I know fate played a hand there. Harry’s a ‘backup’ in the nicest possible way.”
Harry’s known of his spare status for as long as he can remember
“The Heir and the Spare—there was no judgment about it, but also no ambiguity,” Harry explained early in his 2023 Spare memoir, which is set to be released in paperback.
“I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B […] brought into the world in case something happened to Willy. I was summoned to provide backup, distraction, diversion, and, if necessary, a spare part. Kidney, perhaps. Blood transfusion. Speck of bone marrow.”
“This was all made explicitly clear to me from the start of life’s journey and regularly reinforced thereafter,” Harry continued. All of it, he explained, was simply the way things were for him. As such, he “took no offense” and felt “nothing about it, any of it.”
“Succession was like the weather, or the positions of the planets, or the turn of the seasons. Who had time to worry about things so unchangeable?”
William’s now first in line to the throne since he and Harry’s father became king in 2022. As for Harry, he’s no. five behind Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.
Princess Diana, Prince Harry, Prince William, and King Charles III | Terry Fincher/Getty Images
King Charles first referred to Harry as a ‘spare’
Elsewhere in Spare, Harry shared that the first person to refer to him as “spare” was his father, King Charles III, a story he became aware of at the age of 20.
The comment came shortly after Harry’s birth on Sept. 15, 1984, when his father came to see him and Diana at the hospital. “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an heir and a spare—my work is done,” the king said.
The now-father of two also revealed he and William’s heir and spare label “wasn’t merely how the press referred to us—though it was definitely that.” It was also “shorthand often used by Pa [King Charles] and Mummy [Diana] and Grandpa [Prince Philip]. And even Granny [Queen Elizabeth II].
