- Ghostwriter Becca Grischow has defended what some say are inaccuracies in Prince Harry's book.
- The prince's memoir, "Spare," received criticism after some details were said to be incorrect.
A ghostwriter who said she has helped pen more than 50 books has defended Prince Harry after he was criticized for what some say are inaccuracies in his memoir, "Spare."
Becca Grischow is a US-based ghostwriter in her late 20s who shares details about her profession via her TikTok account, @beegrizwrites, which has more than 85,600 followers as of Friday. Grischow told Insider she has been a ghostwriter for six years and that her specialty is writing memoirs.
Her former clients include entrepreneurs, reality TV stars, and social-media influencers, she said. Grischow's employment has been verified by Insider.
@beegrizwrites Hello from the other side of a 2 day memoir writing intensive!!! This book is going to bring you to your knees. I’ll let the client ID herself or be anonymous, but either way, catch me in bed until Monday morning. #writertok #writing #memoir ♬ original sound - Becca the Writer
Grischow spoke to Insider about what she described as "absolutely negligible" inaccuracies in Harry's memoir, which was published worldwide on January 10.
Several publications, including Page Six, reported that there were errors in some of the details shared by Harry in the book. For example, Harry writes that he was aged 17 and at boarding school when he found out the Queen Mother had died in March 2002, while Page Six reports that photos from the time show the prince was on a ski trip in Switzerland.
Meanwhile, Mail Online reported that Harry's description of what Meghan Markle wore to their first date in July 2016 — a black sweater, jeans, and heels — contradicts what Meghan previously said she wore. According to Mail Online, Meghan said during a September 2018 interview with the Royal Collections curator that she wore a blue dress for their first date and had a piece of the fabric sewn into her wedding gown as her "something blue."
Harry has also been accused of making factual errors in the book. For instance, he refers to King Henry VI — the founder of the private school Eton College which Harry attended from 1998 to 2003 — as his "great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather." Various social-media users and publications, including the Los Angeles Times, report that this is incorrect as Henry VI had just one son, Edward of Westminster, who had no children upon his death at the age of 17 in 1471.
Harry also wrote that Meghan booked her estranged father, Thomas Markle, a first-class Air New Zealand flight from Mexico to London before her royal wedding in 2018 when he was being hounded by the press. A spokesperson for the airline told the New Zealand Herald that it doesn't offer first-class tickets and has never operated flights between Mexico and the UK.
"For anyone who is not Prince Harry, these inaccuracies wouldn't matter," Grischow told Insider. "The microscope that is on him and Meghan is so intense, and the photos and the logs of every move they have ever made are so complete."
"If someone asked me what I wore on a first date, I wouldn't be able to tell you. But there are no superfans of me. So, to me, the inaccuracies that are being reported are absolutely negligible," she said.
A Twitter account that appears to belong to Harry's ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer, shared a quote by Mary Karr on January 11 that seemed to reference the criticism.
"The line between memory and fact is blurry, between interpretation and fact. There are inadvertent mistakes of those kinds out the wazoo," the quote read. Representatives for Moehringer did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment regarding the account.
Grischow told Insider that she doesn't believe the inaccuracies are the fault of Moehringer or Harry, who she said would likely have worked together to create a scene based on the information Harry could remember.
"I don't think it's a fault at all, because it's not a textbook, it's a memoir," she said.
"When I think about that as a ghostwriter, if someone I'm interviewing says, 'I was at boarding school at the time,' it is my obligation as a ghostwriter and my job to take that little bit of information and turn it into a scene or a larger part of the book," she said.
"I think there's also going to be criticism of Harry, no matter what," she added. "I also know that this book went through intense fact-checking, and the facts that are actually important are accurate."
Representatives for the Duke of Sussex did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Penguin Random House declined to comment.