Royal Marine praised in Prince Harry’s Megxit memoir claims Duke needs to ‘shut up’

A former Royal Marine who is mentioned in Prince Harry’s memoir Spare has slammed the Duke, telling him he needs to “shut up” after the royal claimed he killed 25 Taliban fighters during his time with the army in Afghanistan. In reference to the Duke, Ben McBean said: “I don’t have to support everything he does.”

On Thursday, it emerged that Mr McBean was praised by the Duke in his controversial memoir.

Writing on Twitter, Mr McBean offered his thanks for the praise and said that he had “liked” the Duke from “day one” but that did not change his views about his kill count revelations.

In Spare, the Duke recalled Mr McBean’s bravery and his subsequent recovery after losing an arm and a leg in a roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan.

He recalled watching Mr McBean successfully climbing a wall the day after he received his prosthetic leg in a physical rehabilitation centre.

He said: “I was astounded. I’d never been so proud – to be British, to be a soldier, to be his brother in arms.

“I told him so. I told him I wanted to buy him a beer for getting to the top of that wall.

“No, no, a crate of beer.”

The Duke added that he would be “waiting at the finish line” if Mr McBean completed a marathon which is something he had indicated that he wanted to do.

In his book, the Duke also recalled the first time the pair met in 2008 when they were evacuated from Afghanistan on the same flight.

Mr McBean has previously praised the Duke for the support that he offered him during his recovery, saying that the royal “often writes me notes of support” and “bought me a whole crate of beer”.

However, last week, when revelations from Spare were leaked, including the Afghanistan kill count claim, Mr McBean tweeted that the Duke needed to “shut up”.

He added that if good people were around him they would have “told him to stop”.

Other military community members have also slammed Prince Harry for making the claims.

Colonel Tim Collins, famous for making a motivational speech before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, claimed that the Duke was “naive” and that he had “betrayed” the trust of the military just like he had with his own family.

He said: “I think he’s completely naive.

“There’s no understanding of what he’s doing and what he has done.

“The military has always embraced him into the family no matter what had gone on before.

“He’s now betrayed that trust in the same way he’s betrayed his birth family.”