You can soon buy a blood-soaked copy of Prince Harry’s ‘Spare’ - but it’s not cheap

Just when you thought all the chatter around Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir Spare had died down following its release back in January, the book is back in the news as you will soon be able to buy a copy soaked in blood – if you have £8,000 handy.

Copies of the bleak and bloody version, which go on display in a shop in Windsor on Saturday, have been designed by Russian artist Andrei Molodkin.

They were created in protest over remarks made by the duke in the book about how many people he had killed in Afghanistan, with the very real, human blood coming from Afghan individuals.

It was one of Spare’s many shocking revelations, and the number of bloody copies available to purchase is the same as the number Harry said he killed while serving in Afghanistan – 25.

He didn’t see them as “people”, though, but rather “chess pieces” which had been taken off the board, and “bad people” who had been “eliminated before they could kill good people”.

“My number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me,” he wrote.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

The prince attracted heavy criticism for revealing his kill count, with the Taliban calling for him to be tried in an international court, Tory MP and army reservist Tobias Ellwood branding his comments “ill-advised” and retired British Army colonel Tim Collins saying the remarks are “not how you behave in the army”.

Harry later said it was a “dangerous lie” that he had “boasted” about the number of Taliban fighters he had killed.

However, in a statement explaining his artistic stunt – titled ‘Blood Money’ – Molodkin said: “"Prince Harry boasts of killing Taliban like they're baddies in a video game, 'otherising' human life then cashing in on the sorry tale to sell books about his drug binging, sexual exploits and killing conquests."

It isn’t the first time Molodkin has used blood to produce shocking pieces of art. Last year he produced a sculpture of Vladimir Putin filled with the blood of Ukrainian people which was live-streamed in Moscow, and last month made headlines over plans to project artwork containing the blood of Afghan people onto St Paul’s Cathedral.

The books, meanwhile, will reportedly go on sale at the art body a/political on 2 May – just days before the coronation of King Charles III on 6 May.

Sky Newsreports that money raised from the sale of Molodkin’s versions of Spare will be donated to Afghan charities.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.