Royal author Omid Scobie revealed he feared being sued if he named the royals at the centre of a racism row and added "it's not for me to name them".
The Dutch version of his controversial book Endgame was pulled from shelves on Tuesday, the day of publication, after early reviewers spotted it mentioned an individual who was said to have questioned Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's son Prince Archie’s skin tone before he was born. Today, the name of a second member of the monarchy, alleged to have made the same comment, has supposedly been found in the pages of the Dutch edition, titled Final Battle. Neither names are included in the English version.
In a new statement today, Mr Scobie insisted he had only written and edited the English version of the book, so is unable to comment on the Dutch manuscript. And it has now been revealed that in an interview with the i before the book was published, the author revealed how he was unable to put forward the names.
He said: "Books are held to a much higher legal standard than periodicals or a newspaper,” Scobie told the i: "To put anything in a book you really have to be able to show and tell. The fact of the matter is I don’t have those letters so I can't put forward the names mentioned in them. I’m not then able to produce those letters if someone were to ask or challenge me."
He added: "The names are in the letters. And I believe that there are enough people who are aware of this. I don’t think it’s particularly a secret at this point. It’s not for me to name them but I was surprised to discover it was two people (speculating over Archie). It was interesting to learn of the details of the conversation between Meghan and Charles that followed."
Xander, the publisher of the Dutch translation, has put sales of the book on hold "temporarily" over what it calls an "error". They said in a statement: "[We are] temporarily withdrawing the book by Omid Scobie from sale. An error occurred in the Dutch translation and is currently being rectified."
Last night, Mr Scobie himself denied responsibility for the error, telling Dutch chat show RTL Boulevard: "The book is in several languages, and unfortunately I do not speak Dutch. But if there are translation errors, I'm sure the publishers will have it under control. I wrote and edited the English version. There's never been no version I've produced which has names in it."
In their interview with Oprah in 2021, Harry and Meghan alleged an unidentified member of the monarchy – but not Queen Elizabeth II or her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh – had raised "concerns and conversations about how dark his [Archie] skin might be when he's born".