Prince Harry’s controversial memoir, Spare, has earned a spot in the Guinness World Records.
After spilling all (well, almost) in his book, giving interview after interview, and in general creating a royal buzz around his trauma, the 38-year-old Duke of Sussex is now celebrating a record-breaking feat.
Spare has become the fastest-selling non-fiction book of all time, selling 1.43 million copies in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada on its first day.
The news was confirmed by the memoir’s publisher, which released a statement saying, “The first full day of sales of Spare represents the largest first-day sales total for any non-fiction book ever published by Penguin Random House.”
Before Spare took over the top spot, Barack Obama’s 2020 memoir, A Promised Land, was the record holder, with 887,000 copies sold on its first day.
Spare was officially released on January 10. However, Spanish-language copies were mistakenly put on shelves in Spain five days before the tell-all was supposed to debut, which resulted in explosive excerpts getting leaked by the press.
The leaks did not have a negative effect on sales, though. If anything, they may even have encouraged people to buy the book.
Among Prince Harry’s bombshell revelations in his memoir was his troubled relationship with his brother and father, Prince William and King Charles.
He also had shocking stories to tell about the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, and his stepmother, Queen Consort Camilla.
Plus, there were a lot of jaw-dropping details, like killing people in Afghanistan and losing his virginity to an older woman.
Leading up to the book’s release, Prince Harry promoted it heavily on ITV, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 60 Minutes, and Good Morning America, repeating his incendiary accusations during those interviews.
Though he made a lot of revelations, he said he actually had enough excess material to write another book. He allegedly decided to omit a lot of details because Prince William and King Charles would never forgive him otherwise.
Spare, which was ghostwritten by American novelist and journalist J. R. Moehringer, had an initial print run of two million copies and is now in its second printing.
