Who is Tom Bower, the author who claimed Harry is being ‘brainwashed’ by Meghan?
A new royal book has sparked a furious reaction from its subjects, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Prince Harry and Meghan launched a blistering attack on its ‘deranged’ author, Tom Bower.
The book, which is being released later this month, claims Queen Camilla once told a friend: ‘Meghan’s brainwashed Harry’.
Betrayal: Power, Deceit and the Fight for the Future of the Royal Family also claims the Prince and Princess of Wales considered Meghan ‘a threat’ in the run-up to the Sussexes’ decision to leave Britain for the US.
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The book also says that Prince Harry feared his older brother and future king, William, ‘could remove all the Sussexes’ titles and effectively banish him from Britain’.
Responding to the allegations, a spokesperson for Prince Harry and Meghan said Bower had ‘long crossed the line from criticism into fixation’.
They added: ‘This is someone who has publicly stated, “the monarchy in fact depends on actually obliterating the Sussexes from our state of life,” language that speaks for itself.
‘He has made a career out of constructing ever more elaborate theories about people he does not know and has never met.
‘Those interested in facts will look elsewhere; those seeking deranged conspiracy and melodrama know exactly where to find him.’
This is not the royal couple’s first run-in with Bower, who has written controversial books on the UK’s most famous faces.
Who is Tom Bower?
Tom Bower, 79, is a former BBC Panorama journalist who is known for his unauthorised biographies.
He left the BBC in 1995 and has written more than 20 books chronicling the lives of Royals, politicians and British tycoons.
His first works focused on the failure to denazify post war Germany and the hunt for Nazi war criminals.
He then turned his attention to publishing giant Robert Maxwell and, later, business magnate Richard Branson.
Both men unsuccessfully sued the author, with Maxwell pursuing him in court on multiple occasions.
Bower has sold more than two million books, many of which have been critically acclaimed.
(Credits: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
His work on corruption in English football, Broken Dreams: Vanity, Greed and the Souring of British Football, received the William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize.
Not all of his books have won him enemies. He has said he’s now friends with Simon Cowell and Bernie Ecclestone after writing biographies on both of them.
What else has Tom Bower written about the royal family?
The royals have been repeated targets for Bower’s investigative journalism.
One work published in 2018 – The Rebel Prince -tells the story of Prince Charles’s bid to rehabilitate himself after Princess Diana’s death.
The highly negative biography was a number one best seller – portraying the now King as vain, cold and out of touch.
In 2022, Bower has already published a book on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
Titled Revenge, he wrote about their strained relationship with the Royal Family.
The book claimed the Duchess of Sussex rejected a suggestion by the Queen and the Prince of Wales that she fly to the US to reconcile with her father.
In an interview with the Telegraph in 2023, Bower said that book had been his most lucrative and sold more than 300,000 copies in hardback in the UK alone.
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