Prince Harry is sitting down for another chat about his bestselling and controversial memoir, Spare, and this time he’ll be speaking with a Hungarian-Canadian doctor.
Harry will join Canadian physician, author and trauma expert Gabor Maté for an “intimate conversation,” and the public can purchase tickets for the virtual event and submit questions for the prince to answer.
Maté is a renowned addiction expert and the author of the recently published book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. He, like Harry, is a bestselling author. His writings cover childhood development, the physical and mental impacts of stress, ADHD and addiction.
The one-hour interview will be livestreamed the morning of March 4, starting at 9 a.m. PT, from an undisclosed location.
Maté tweeted about the event late last week, encouraging royal watchers to buy their ticket by March 1 for a chance to have a submitted question asked during the event.
According to Vanity Fair, the pair will “discuss the difficulties of living with loss, as well as the importance of personal healing.”
There are two levels of ticket pricing: $45.38 includes a copy of Spare, while $82.82 includes both Spare and Maté’s latest book.
Maté, 79, is considered one of the world’s leading voices advocating for alternative addiction treatment and has been a longtime supporter of the decriminalization of drugs.
His promotion of and use of the Amazonian plant ayahuasca to treat mental illness landed him with a warning in 2011. The drug is illegal in Canada, and Health Canada officials threatened to have him arrested if he didn’t stop using ayahuasca to treat his patients.
Last month, Harry’s Spare became an instant bestseller around the globe, capturing the number one position of the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction bestseller list for six consecutive weeks. More than 1.4 million units of the English-language copy were sold on the first day it was available, making it the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time.
Prince Harry has been clear about why he wrote the book, telling People last month: “My hope has been to turn my pain into purpose, so if sharing my experience makes a positive difference in someone’s life, well, I can’t think of anything more rewarding than that.
“This book and its truths are in many ways a continuation of my own mental health journey. It’s a raw account of my life — the good, the bad and everything in between,” he continued.
The release of the book last month, coupled with four promotional interviews given by the prince to various news outlets and talk shows, saw a division of opinion. Many were critical of his decision to publish so many intimate and, at times, unflattering details of life inside the British Royal Family. Others applauded him for his honesty and willingness to exposed the toxic relationship between Buckingham Palace and the U.K.’s tabloid media.
His interviews also focused on his strained relationship with his family, accusing members of his family of getting “into bed with the devil” to gain favourable tabloid coverage, claiming his stepmother Camilla, the queen consort, had leaked private conversations to the media and saying his family was “complicit” in his wife Meghan’s “pain and suffering.”
Harry insists he wants to salvage what remains of his relationship with his brother and father, King Charles III, but some have pointed out that airing his family’s dirty laundry in such a public — and furious — fashion might have the opposite effect.