Ronald Reagan's daughter warns Prince Harry of the danger in exposing family secrets

Author Patti Davis, the former first daughter who wrote a scathing book about her former-president father, Ronald Reagan, and their dysfunctional family in the 1980s and 1990s, is encouraging Britain's Prince Harry to learn from her mistakes.

Her advice: Shush. Zip it. Shut your trap.

In a Saturday guest essay for the New York Times, the author of "The Long Goodbye" and "Bondage" revealed that she later apologized to her father for writing her vengeful 1992 autobiography "The Way I See It," in which she "flung open the gates of our troubled family life." Her first nonfiction book revealed that Reagan was excessively detached as both a father and a leader and that her mother, the late Nancy Reagan, was abusive and had a prescription drug addiction while she touted the administration's "Just Say No" to drugs campaign.

The 70-year-old scribe, who also wrote several thinly veiled semi-biographical novels about her family, drew parallels between Reagan and King Charles III in her essay, comparing her work to that of Prince Harry. The prince's bombshell memoir, "Spare", is his attempt to "own" his story. In it, he shares plentiful details about his personal life and rails against the British royal family — especially his brother, Prince William — and the alleged mistreatment of his wife, Meghan Markle, with whom he stepped back from working royal duties in 2020.

The book, which will be released Tuesday, has already generated incendiary headlines coupled with stories based on the duke of Sussex's high-profile promotional appearances on the likes of Britain’s ITV and CBS’ "60 Minutes."

During the 1980s, the Reagans were the closest thing America had to royalty, and details of their internal feuds were consumed in a similarly voracious manner. So Davis cautioned the 38-year-old prince, who remains fifth in line to the British throne.

"My justification in writing a book I now wish I hadn’t written (and please, don’t go buy it; I’ve written many other books since) was very similar to what I understand to be Harry’s reasoning," Davis said. "I wanted to tell the truth, I wanted to set the record straight. Naïvely, I thought if I put my own feelings and my own truth out there for the world to read, my family might also come to understand me better.

"Of course, people generally don’t respond well to being embarrassed and exposed in public. And in the ensuing years, I’ve learned something about truth: It’s way more complicated than it seems when we’re young. There isn’t just one truth, our truth — the other people who inhabit our story have their truths as well."

Davis pointed to an allegation Harry includes in the book about a physical fight with Prince William and their father's reaction to the fraternal turmoil, saying that Harry has indeed hit back by writing "Spare." Although she didn't discourage the son of the late Princess Diana from sharing his story, she believes it's premature.

"Years ago, someone asked me what I would say to my younger self if I could. Without hesitating I answered: 'That’s easy. I’d have said, "Be quiet."' Not forever. But until I could stand back and look at things through a wider lens. Until I understood that words have consequences, and they last a really long time," she wrote.

"Harry has called William not only his 'beloved brother' but his 'arch nemesis.' He chose words that cut deep, that leave a scar; perhaps if he had taken time to be quiet, to reflect on the enduring power of his words, he’d have chosen differently."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.