Betrayal, by Tom Bower
Obviously the big caveat here is that I'm/we're not Bower's target audience. This book was written for the casual observer who hasn't really paid attention or perhaps someone who doesn't even know altogether. So from the engaged royal-watcher perspective, there isn't really a whole lot new being revealed - much of the narrative and events covered in Betrayal are things that we've covered here in our own little corner of tumblr before and often. What I did appreciate, as someone who knew much of this already, was that Bower included a lot of context and that was where most of the new-to-me facts and reveals came from.
Now I mentioned on the other post that I was a little annoyed by Bower in this book. I think the annoyance comes from Bower's inability to decide who (or what, rather) Harry is. Is Harry a hapless idiot controlled by more dominating personalities like Meghan and Sherborne? Is Harry an angry and vengeful cutthroat, hellbent on avenging his perceived disrespect? Is Harry an entitled wealthy white man who can't cope with actual reality? Just make up your mind, man! But one thing is clear, Bower doesn't like Harry and I think that seeps into his characterization. He definitely doesn't like JR Moehringer/Harry's ghostwriter and it does feel like he thinks quite poorly of Moehringer, maybe even considers him an embarrassment to writing/editing.
I also speculated a few weeks ago (maybe months?) that the serialized excerpts sounded like Betrayal would be more about Harry than Meghan, and that's correct. This is how I'd say the book shakes out:
Sussexes together: Oprah and the Netflix docuseries, Jubilee, the funeral, Nigeria, Colombia, New York trips, collecting awards
Harry: Sandringham Summit, his lawsuits, his collapsing charities, Spare, the war with Charles and William, deteriorating relationship with The Queen, his anger with the media and grey suits (Young specifically)
Meghan: One Young World, her many branding launches, the podcasts, her spending, all the word salading.
No one really gets off scot-free here - Bower recaps some of the BRF events and there's criticism of the royals too. Charles is a weak and indecisive king and his cash-for-honors scandals are covered. William is angry and too decisive, with the dog bowl incident, Jamaica, and Boston/Susan Hussey covered. The usual Kate insults are repeated (lazy, faked cancer) and the photoshop edit scandal is covered. Camilla's preference for Andrew PB at Charles's expense is covered. Andrew's Epstein woes are covered and Bower does pontificate a little on what his February 2026 arrest means for the monarchy's future. Even Edward catches a little stray.
Some of my favorite lines:
"Topping the products was an unexceptional bottle of white wine for $89.95."
"His cause, he would repeat, was to reform the monarchy for the sake of his brother's children. Like him, two would be 'spares' - 'and that hurts. It worries me.' Quite how describing his frozen penis, sex with a woman in a field and making faces at a hapless school assistant would help Charlotte and Louis was not explained."
"Unexpectedly, they had not been invited to Barack Obama's sixtieth birthday party"
"More substantially, few could understand Meghan's estimation that [the baby momma twerk video] reinforced her status as a serious player. Just who did Meghan hope to influence favorably? Did she realize the risks of being judged as an attention-hunting celebrity? The denizens of the fashion and lifestyle world expected their models to be coolly sophisticated rather than recklessly vulgar."
"One delegate's question remained unanswered: 'Why doesn't she just wear Adidas sneakers?' Another Canadian commented, 'Her shoes seem out of place.'" (about how Meghan turned Invictus into her fashion show)
"Meghan was alone in Montecito, giving her critics the impression that she was listening again and again to her Lemonada podcasts and rewatching herself on Netflix, failing to understand why she was targeted by ridicule rather than deluged with praise."
"A dithering sick king surrounded by obedient advisors in a seemingly rudderless court was ill-equipped to manage his brother, who had now been exposed as an outright liar." (about Andrew's Epstein emails that were discovered in October 2025 after years of Andrew denying anything)
On the last one in particular -> I like this one because Bower implies that it's Andrew being caught in lies that finally toppled the Yorks. It is a bit of a prescient line, because Bower literally spends all of Betrayal pointing out how inconsistent the Sussexes' stories are and how they keep lying/revising their narratives. The assumption here is that if, per Bower, Andrew loses everything because he was "exposed as an outright liar," then Harry and Meghan may or should be losing everything as well because they've been exposed many times over for being outright liars.
Ok, so I have 467 bookmarks and highlights in the book...meaning it's going to take me a few days to organize all of it.
I will leave you with this: my sense is that Bower sees South Park as the Rubicon and it's been mostly downhill for the Sussexes from there.
And I would agree with that. What makes the Worldwide Privacy Tour dangerous is that 1) the audience that watches South Park isn't the audience that the Sussexes cater to, which rendered any counter-programming or counter-PR from the Sussexes completely ineffective (and very "horse out of the barn") and 2) even if you don't watch South Park (🙋♀️), you know the kind of soft power and cultural influence Trey Parker and Matt Stone have so that when they satirize something to this extent, you know there is actually some serious social commentary attached to it and it's worth paying attention to.
