Endgame author Omid Scobie criticises translated extracts of royal bookon November 25, 2023 at 10:45 pm

The author of a forthcoming book about the Royal Family has urged people to wait until it comes out, saying media reports were using “bad translations and snippets without context”.

Omid Scobie, a royal commentator, will see his book Endgame – which describes a “fight for survival” within the Royal Household – published on Tuesday.

Extracts from the book have been published in US and French media.

But Scobie said not all the reported passages were accurate.

“Whether you like my work or loathe it, all I ask is that if you are reading coverage about what’s supposedly inside Endgame, please also read the book itself,” Scobie, a former Yahoo! News UK royal editor, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

His comments came as several UK newspapers reported what were said to be extracts from the book published this week in Paris Match, a French magazine.

“It has been hugely frustrating watching news sites run stories based on contextless and poorly translated snippets from a French serialisation of Endgame,” Scobie told BBC News.

He expressed disappointment at media reports that he said left readers “to believe that this is how the material – much of which is almost unrecognisable from the original English manuscript – appears in the book”.

In the UK newspaper reports said to be based on the extracts published in Paris Match, claims relate to supposed details of conversations between the Duke of Sussex and his father, the King, earlier this year, and the relationship between Prince Harry and his brother, Prince William.

Separately, the Sun reports claims about the content of letters exchanged between the King, who was then the Prince of Wales, and the Duchess of Sussex in the wake of her 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.

It also claims the duchess named two members of the Royal Household who are alleged to have referred to the race of her then-unborn child, Archie, in the letters.

BBC News has contacted the duke and duchess for comment. Buckingham Palace declined to comment.

Speculation following the publication of Scobie’s previous royal book, Finding Freedom – which chronicled the Sussexes’ stepping back as working royals – led the royal couple to deny they had contributed to it.

The 42-year-old journalist has consistently denied the duke and duchess were direct sources for his work, adding recently that he was not Meghan’s friend and that “the Sussexes have nothing to do with” his latest book.

The Royal Family continues to provide inspiration for authors, book editors and television commissioners. Prince Harry’s own memoir Spare has retained its standing as Amazon’s best-selling book of 2023 after its release in January.

That success prompted media speculation that Meghan would publish her own tell-all memoirs, but sources close to the Sussexes poured cold water on the rumours, telling the BBC’s Sean Coughlan there was no basis for the speculation.

The Sussexes are also budding producers in their own right. Meghan spoke on the red carpet at Variety’s Power of Women gala in Los Angeles last week, telling reporters her production company, Archewell, had “so many exciting things on the slate”.

“I can’t wait until we can announce them, but I’m just really proud of what we’re creating,” she said. “My husband is loving it, too. It’s really fun.”

Netflix’s royal drama series The Crown ends its seven-year run next month with the release of the final six episodes. Two competing films, from Netflix and Amazon, based on BBC Newsnight’s 2019 interview with the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, are currently in production.