Prince Harry has been many things over the years. He has been the playboy prince, the party prince. For a while in the summer of 2012 he was so impressive in these roles that he looked as if he was trying to secure a movie career. After being photographed naked - "cavorting", I believe the word is - in a Las Vegas hotel room, the producers of The Hangover apparently planned to get in touch with him regarding a sequel. Prince Harry is, of course, other things, too: a soldier, fifth in line to the throne, a bit of buffoon, and - like his mother - good with children. But right now he is none of those things. Now, Prince Harry is the male Bridget Jones.
On Monday, the prince, who is on a tour of New Zealand, gave a frank interview to Sky News's royal reporter Rhiannon Mills in which he laid his cards on the table. "There come times when you think now is the time to settle down or now is not," he says, giving his left eyebrow a scratch, possibly straining a little over the grammar. "But I don't think you can force these things. You know, it will happen when it's going to happen. Of course, I would love to have kids right now, but there's a process ... that one has to go through."
It is good that he understands about the "process" part of having a family. But, immediately, Harry took on the narrative of a downbeat singleton - a role that he underlined by attending a pub quiz and doling out cupcakes to people he hardly knew. Now every picture of Harry smiling at a baby who has been dragged along to a royal appearance says only one thing: I want you. Because now we know that, underneath it all, Harry is thinking only about when he will find love. As a tip, though, saying, "It would be great to have someone else next to me to share the pressure" may not be the best sell in the world.
Harry was frank in his interview. But in the reports of his interview, Harry is even franker. The Daily Mail has read between the lines and believes that Harry "has admitted he is more broody than ever". The interest in the prince cuts across all strata of media. Celebdirtylaundry.com says Harry is "In Full-On Baby Fever ... Wants To Start Family ASAP!" Latin Times has a list of "5 Latinas That Could Be His Baby Mama". Google Harry and, with a matchmaking air of mischief, the search engine suggests "Emma Watson". For the Evening Standard, Prince Harry is the "30-year-old bachelor prince", because if there's one crucial fact about a bachelor, it is his age.
This is Harry's narrative, and it has years left to run. Narrative is something 21st-century human beings can't get enough of. (It is impossible to win a reality TV show without one.) In the same way that Jennifer Aniston was, for years, seen only through the prism of her romantic life, so Harry - who is on the brink of a major career-change having decided to leave the army - has shrunk in the terms of his storyline to being a single person in search of love. It is possible that Harry doesn't understand this. He prefaced his wish to settle down with the question: "Isn't that the same for everyone?" No, Harry. This is not about everyone.
The unusual thing about Harry's quotes is that he chose to add to the narrative himself; historically, female stars have had other people's narratives thrust upon them. Caroline Barrett is assistant editor of women's weekly Grazia. She has just come out of an editorial meeting at which Harry's emotional story has been discussed. He will feature in the next issue. "He certainly feels like Bridget Jones this week," she says. "He has laid it all out and said, 'I'd like to find somebody.' There was a time when you would only be interested in women's love lives. Jennifer Aniston, for instance. What's certainly happened, in the last few years, is that there is a whole new cast of characters that we've become obsessed with - and they are all men."
She mentions Bradley Cooper, Harry Styles, and points out that after the conscious uncoupling of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, Martin's love life came under a scrutiny equal as Paltrow's. Barrett's theory is borne out by the so-called "sidebar of shame" of the Mail Online, which for years was full of well-proportioned female bodies escaping small clothes. Now it is as likely to report on the romantic progress of Cooper (he's there today, "giggling and cuddling" in the back of a taxi) and the male stars of Made in Chelsea or The Only Way is Essex. Men have become fair game.
Perhaps Harry as Bridget Jones is a victory for feminism. If nothing else, at least this voyeuristic narrative is no longer the preserve of women. "The key reason people are interested in this story is because it is relatable," Barrett says. "I do think it's healthy that we are as interested in a male love lives as well as a female love lives. Why should only women be looked at in such detail?" In terms of equality, this is probably a good thing. In terms of humanity, surely any intrusion is equally deplorable.
Prince Harry has often made frank declarations about his emotional life (he previously told Hello magazine it was hard to find a partner.) He says things that Bridget Jones would say: he once told an interviewer he was "100% single", suggesting not only extreme loneliness and a Jonesian eagerness to advertise availability, but also a willingness to see singledom as something that exists on a spectrum. When his brother William married his university girlfriend, Harry became an unpaired extra, tagging along with them at social events, like the Olympics. They were his Smug Marrieds. With them, he was not alone, but also more obviously alone. You can see how this story began to develop.
Like Bridget Jones, Harry sometimes drinks too much and makes a fool of himself in front of people. He sports a comedic haplessness. How typical that the people he was partying with on the Las Vegas stag do had phones on their cameras. Last year, in a pen portrait to celebrate his 30th birthday, the Mail on Sunday described Harry's "Sunday night blues" (poor Harry, lonely again), spent at the home of a friend, during which they "share a pizza or Chinese takeaway ... [and] watch a DVD box set." It could almost have been a visit to Bridget's house.
Jenni Bond, the former royal correspondent for the BBC, laughs at the Bridget Jones idea. She thinks none of this compares to the sort of conjecture to which Prince Charles was subjected in his single years, although Charles did not have to live through the equivalent of I Wanna Marry Harry, a Fox reality dating show based upon a Harry lookalike's search for a partner. "It's very difficult being the spare, or even further down the order now, the spare to the spare to the spare. I think it's rather sweet, actually," Bond says. "He's always been a bit of a chap who wears his heart on his sleeve. But I'm sure he doesn't spend his whole life agonising with his head in his hands over when he'll find Mrs Right."
That sort of pragmatism, however, will not do. When an eminent woman becomes the centre of a romantic quest in the media, each fresh action in her romantic life - whether it is meeting someone, getting on with them, parting from them or having a faintly bloated stomach - sparks a fresh wave of speculation about what will come next. Jennifer Aniston undergoes exactly this treatment each time she is linked with a new potential spouse, and is presumed by some US gossip magsto currently be pregnant. "Being linked" is crucial to the propagation of these stories, because the state of being linked requires no factual substantiation.
It really doesn't matter whether Harry is agonising or not. The narrative will thicken around him. Proofs will be found. "He is sociable," says Grazia's Barrett. "You see him out a lot. You see him going to a west London club. There are images."
"Sad, lonely singleton?" says Alex Bilmes, editor of Esquire. "He doesn't look sad and lonely to me. He's not Bridget Jones. He's the reverse. He's James Bond. He's an international man of action, travelling the world, loving up the ladies." But surely he must see that Harry now is going to have to live through the story of his single life until it ends, ideally in one doomed relationship after another? The plot will fizzle out pitiably if he makes a happy marriage. "I realise that at a certain point it starts to look a bit sad," Bilmes says. But he thinks that's society's fault for presenting marriage and children as the only satisfactory conclusion.
Jenny Colgan, as the author of romantic novels, understands how these things work. "Nazi uniforms aside - and that's not a line you can easily put aside - Prince Harry is fast becoming an almost perfect romantic hero. Handsome, tall, soldier stuff, tragic past, billions of quid and this year's most fashionable hair colour. Likes dogs, gets on well with women - I like his obvious unforced friendship with his sisters-in-law - and now he's added to his attractiveness by talking about how he just wants to find 'the one'."
Colgan, however, thinks this is all part of the plan, that it is Harry who is really driving this story forward. "Bridget Jones is the underdog, the non-traditional shiny haired giraffe-thighed desirable girl," she says. "Whereas Harry has four of everything and his pick of pretty much 17% of all humanity to sleep with. I reckon, in the manner of those moist-eyed cads on Made in Chelsea, he is simply enhancing his brand to balance out the next time he gets caught playing nudie snooks with a bunch of strippers in Vegas."
What did Mark Darcy say to Bridget Jones? "I don't think you're an idiot at all." Perhaps Harry has played this just right.
On Monday, the prince, who is on a tour of New Zealand, gave a frank interview to Sky News's royal reporter Rhiannon Mills in which he laid his cards on the table. "There come times when you think now is the time to settle down or now is not," he says, giving his left eyebrow a scratch, possibly straining a little over the grammar. "But I don't think you can force these things. You know, it will happen when it's going to happen. Of course, I would love to have kids right now, but there's a process ... that one has to go through."
It is good that he understands about the "process" part of having a family. But, immediately, Harry took on the narrative of a downbeat singleton - a role that he underlined by attending a pub quiz and doling out cupcakes to people he hardly knew. Now every picture of Harry smiling at a baby who has been dragged along to a royal appearance says only one thing: I want you. Because now we know that, underneath it all, Harry is thinking only about when he will find love. As a tip, though, saying, "It would be great to have someone else next to me to share the pressure" may not be the best sell in the world.
Harry was frank in his interview. But in the reports of his interview, Harry is even franker. The Daily Mail has read between the lines and believes that Harry "has admitted he is more broody than ever". The interest in the prince cuts across all strata of media. Celebdirtylaundry.com says Harry is "In Full-On Baby Fever ... Wants To Start Family ASAP!" Latin Times has a list of "5 Latinas That Could Be His Baby Mama". Google Harry and, with a matchmaking air of mischief, the search engine suggests "Emma Watson". For the Evening Standard, Prince Harry is the "30-year-old bachelor prince", because if there's one crucial fact about a bachelor, it is his age.
This is Harry's narrative, and it has years left to run. Narrative is something 21st-century human beings can't get enough of. (It is impossible to win a reality TV show without one.) In the same way that Jennifer Aniston was, for years, seen only through the prism of her romantic life, so Harry - who is on the brink of a major career-change having decided to leave the army - has shrunk in the terms of his storyline to being a single person in search of love. It is possible that Harry doesn't understand this. He prefaced his wish to settle down with the question: "Isn't that the same for everyone?" No, Harry. This is not about everyone.
The unusual thing about Harry's quotes is that he chose to add to the narrative himself; historically, female stars have had other people's narratives thrust upon them. Caroline Barrett is assistant editor of women's weekly Grazia. She has just come out of an editorial meeting at which Harry's emotional story has been discussed. He will feature in the next issue. "He certainly feels like Bridget Jones this week," she says. "He has laid it all out and said, 'I'd like to find somebody.' There was a time when you would only be interested in women's love lives. Jennifer Aniston, for instance. What's certainly happened, in the last few years, is that there is a whole new cast of characters that we've become obsessed with - and they are all men."
She mentions Bradley Cooper, Harry Styles, and points out that after the conscious uncoupling of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin, Martin's love life came under a scrutiny equal as Paltrow's. Barrett's theory is borne out by the so-called "sidebar of shame" of the Mail Online, which for years was full of well-proportioned female bodies escaping small clothes. Now it is as likely to report on the romantic progress of Cooper (he's there today, "giggling and cuddling" in the back of a taxi) and the male stars of Made in Chelsea or The Only Way is Essex. Men have become fair game.
Perhaps Harry as Bridget Jones is a victory for feminism. If nothing else, at least this voyeuristic narrative is no longer the preserve of women. "The key reason people are interested in this story is because it is relatable," Barrett says. "I do think it's healthy that we are as interested in a male love lives as well as a female love lives. Why should only women be looked at in such detail?" In terms of equality, this is probably a good thing. In terms of humanity, surely any intrusion is equally deplorable.
Prince Harry has often made frank declarations about his emotional life (he previously told Hello magazine it was hard to find a partner.) He says things that Bridget Jones would say: he once told an interviewer he was "100% single", suggesting not only extreme loneliness and a Jonesian eagerness to advertise availability, but also a willingness to see singledom as something that exists on a spectrum. When his brother William married his university girlfriend, Harry became an unpaired extra, tagging along with them at social events, like the Olympics. They were his Smug Marrieds. With them, he was not alone, but also more obviously alone. You can see how this story began to develop.
Like Bridget Jones, Harry sometimes drinks too much and makes a fool of himself in front of people. He sports a comedic haplessness. How typical that the people he was partying with on the Las Vegas stag do had phones on their cameras. Last year, in a pen portrait to celebrate his 30th birthday, the Mail on Sunday described Harry's "Sunday night blues" (poor Harry, lonely again), spent at the home of a friend, during which they "share a pizza or Chinese takeaway ... [and] watch a DVD box set." It could almost have been a visit to Bridget's house.
Jenni Bond, the former royal correspondent for the BBC, laughs at the Bridget Jones idea. She thinks none of this compares to the sort of conjecture to which Prince Charles was subjected in his single years, although Charles did not have to live through the equivalent of I Wanna Marry Harry, a Fox reality dating show based upon a Harry lookalike's search for a partner. "It's very difficult being the spare, or even further down the order now, the spare to the spare to the spare. I think it's rather sweet, actually," Bond says. "He's always been a bit of a chap who wears his heart on his sleeve. But I'm sure he doesn't spend his whole life agonising with his head in his hands over when he'll find Mrs Right."
That sort of pragmatism, however, will not do. When an eminent woman becomes the centre of a romantic quest in the media, each fresh action in her romantic life - whether it is meeting someone, getting on with them, parting from them or having a faintly bloated stomach - sparks a fresh wave of speculation about what will come next. Jennifer Aniston undergoes exactly this treatment each time she is linked with a new potential spouse, and is presumed by some US gossip magsto currently be pregnant. "Being linked" is crucial to the propagation of these stories, because the state of being linked requires no factual substantiation.
It really doesn't matter whether Harry is agonising or not. The narrative will thicken around him. Proofs will be found. "He is sociable," says Grazia's Barrett. "You see him out a lot. You see him going to a west London club. There are images."
"Sad, lonely singleton?" says Alex Bilmes, editor of Esquire. "He doesn't look sad and lonely to me. He's not Bridget Jones. He's the reverse. He's James Bond. He's an international man of action, travelling the world, loving up the ladies." But surely he must see that Harry now is going to have to live through the story of his single life until it ends, ideally in one doomed relationship after another? The plot will fizzle out pitiably if he makes a happy marriage. "I realise that at a certain point it starts to look a bit sad," Bilmes says. But he thinks that's society's fault for presenting marriage and children as the only satisfactory conclusion.
Jenny Colgan, as the author of romantic novels, understands how these things work. "Nazi uniforms aside - and that's not a line you can easily put aside - Prince Harry is fast becoming an almost perfect romantic hero. Handsome, tall, soldier stuff, tragic past, billions of quid and this year's most fashionable hair colour. Likes dogs, gets on well with women - I like his obvious unforced friendship with his sisters-in-law - and now he's added to his attractiveness by talking about how he just wants to find 'the one'."
Colgan, however, thinks this is all part of the plan, that it is Harry who is really driving this story forward. "Bridget Jones is the underdog, the non-traditional shiny haired giraffe-thighed desirable girl," she says. "Whereas Harry has four of everything and his pick of pretty much 17% of all humanity to sleep with. I reckon, in the manner of those moist-eyed cads on Made in Chelsea, he is simply enhancing his brand to balance out the next time he gets caught playing nudie snooks with a bunch of strippers in Vegas."
What did Mark Darcy say to Bridget Jones? "I don't think you're an idiot at all." Perhaps Harry has played this just right.
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