#A fairy tale of what Prince Harry prints

It’s the hottest book in publishing, but our very own columnist Maureen Callahan managed to get a hold of it. Here, on a manuscript smuggled out page-by-page by an overworked French intern, is your first exclusive excerpt from Prince Harry’s new memoir.

I’ll never forget the way that fateful day unfolded.

It was 11 a.m. I had just woken up from a lengthy slumber, having been swaddled like a baby in my bespoke $4,900 D. Porthault bed linens. My eyes blinkered through the unbearably white light.

“Move the sun!” I thundered. “How many times must I tell you?”

I heard a bothersome scurrying about as I roused myself in my master suite — er, primary suite. My wife Meghan told me that using the word “master” makes you a racist. She’s helping me get woke.

My bride needed to see me at once. At once!

I knew it had to be important. Meghan is so uncomplaining by nature, so easily pleased, that truly something terrible must have happened.

She had changed my life, Meghan had. Gotten me to notice the little people. There were so many of them. Explained what the world needed was the royal family to lecture them on race. She even got me to throw away my Nazi costume. 

I’m not allowed to have a phone, not since Las Vegas, so I had my aide call over to William for advice. First in line, but second in hot wives, am I right? But alas he and dad were doing a world tour by private jet to talk about the problems of climate change. Terrible thing, the climate.

My father doesn’t use a phone either, but he says that’s because he had a very bad experience back in the 1990s involving his now-wife, some feminine hygiene products and the tabloids.

“I can Google that for you if you’d like,” said my ever-considerate bride.

“What’s Google?” I said.

A quick look of mild disdain crossed her lovely face, replaced swiftly by a grin — nay, a Chesire cat smile, I would say.

“Oh, H,” she cooed.

“H” is her nickname for me. Meghan can’t stand any royal pomp-and-circumstance. She told me from the very beginning — she had no use for titles or airs or anything superficial, because that’s not what matters to her.

She did ask me later if I knew Brad Pitt or George Clooney, but I think she was just testing me. About what, I don’t know. Politics, maybe? How can I be expected to know all the US presidents?

Anyway, back to that morning. After I was dressed, fed and gently burped, I was carried on my chair to her wing.

I burst through the door and ran to Meghan’s bedroom suite, where I saw my bride ordering her ladies-in-waiting to pack up all her clothes, jewels, ball gowns, tiaras, scepters, fairy wands and glitter into her Louis Vuitton travel wardrobe, a wedding gift from the Queen.

Looking back now, I wonder if Grandmummy was sending us a message.

“That’s it, Harry!” Meghan exclaimed. “You are being held hostage in this three-story, 100-room palace that your family just had gut-renovated for us! We’re leaving!”

Now, I will admit to being confused. We hadn’t even hunted stag yet.

“Oh, H,” she said.

She tilted her head and squinted her eyes. How I melt.

“You only think you’re happy. Trust me when I tell you that you are trapped. I’m the only one who can save you. We’re going to make a run for it with just the clothes on our backs and the $20 million your mom — who I definitely never heard of before I met you — left as your inheritance.”

“But where will we go?” I asked.

“Canada,” Meghan replied, whilst typing furiously into that little glowy rectangle. “But don’t worry. That’s just for optics. Really we’re going to America, where you will truly know freedom. And Oprah. Maybe even Ted Sarandos and Bob Iger.”

It sounded enticing, I have to say. I didn’t know who those other two guys were, but everyone knows Oprah. 

“Can we also visit Disney World?” I asked. “And maybe get a dog?”

She gave me that look again. 

“Sure, H,” she cooed. “Whatever you want. Now go pack your bags and meet me at the palace gates in an hour. And whatever you do, don’t tell anyone! We need to make a splash on social media. This will be bigger than Brexit.”

“What’s Brexit?” I asked.

“Then we’re going to take our story straight to Netflix,” which she explained to me is some kind of entertainment outlet popular with commoners. 

“Think about it, H,” she said. “Wouldn’t you rather hang out with Beyoncé and Jay-Z? Shouldn’t we summer on Barry Diller’s yacht? The way we’re living — this isn’t freedom. I’m a Gwyneth at heart.”

This, I understood. Anything for my bride — and oh, I suddenly remembered: I think we had a kid stashed around here somewhere. The nannies always had him, so it was easy to forget.

“Shouldn’t we bring him, too?” I asked.

“Of course,” Meghan said. He was our reason for living, she said, and our best bargaining chip. Now we just had to sneak out of the castle, find our way to a private plane and take off in the night without anyone noticing. 

“Leave it to me,” I told ­Meghan. “The Queen knows James Bond. I’ll ask her how.”

Meghan just rolled her eyes and pressed a button on her Insta-thingy-page. This was going to be harder than I thought.

Excerpted with permission from “The Prince’s Diary: A Harry Situation,” coming this fall.