Prince Harry made fresh allegations again the royal family and has given more insights into his private life in an interview with ITV ahead of the release of his memoir Spare.
The Duke of Sussex was interviewed by broadcaster Tim Bradby for Harry: The Interview, which was broadcast on Sunday night, ahead of the release of the book on Tuesday.
The interview was done before a string of revelations were already leaked from the book, which accidentally went on sale early in Spain.
In the in-depth and revealing interview, he:
•Attacked close members of the royal family for ‘getting into bed with the devil” in forging relationships with the tabloid press “to rehabilitate their image”
•Criticised “family members” for a “really horrible reaction” on the day the Queen died with claims of “briefings”, “leakings” and “planting”.
•Denied that he accused the royal family of racism in his Oprah interview
•Defended allegations in the book Camilla leaked details of a meeting she had with William to the press and discussed how he didn’t want her to marry his father but is “happy” for them
•Said he loved his father Charles and brother the Prince of Wales, but said: “At the moment, I don’t recognise them, as much as they probably don’t recognise me.”
•Said that “planting and leaking” by members of his family has caused “millions of words” to be written “trying to trash my wife”.
•Said it was “fair” to say William and the Princess of Wales did not get on with Meghan from the beginning.
•Claimed King Charles once told Harry as he discussed his struggles: “I suppose it’s my fault. I should have got you the help you needed years ago.”
•Discussed his rivalry with his brother William and how they were “two individuals who experienced a very similar traumatic experience, but dealt with it in two very different ways”
•Revealed details of the pain he went through with the death of his mother’s funeral and the post –traumatic stress he felt after her death.
•Said how the people “predominantly responsible” for the princess’s death “all got away with it”.
•Revealed his fears of becoming a single father if history with Diana repeated itself with Meghan
• Discussed the revelations in the book he took marijuana, magic mushrooms and cocaine saying it was “important to acknowledge”
•Backed the Queen’s former lady in waiting Lady Susan Hussey who quit her role after asking a black British domestic violence campaigner where she really came from.
Talking about his relationship with his father and his brother William in the one hour 40 minute programme broadcast last night he told Mr Bradby: “I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family. I will always do.
“Nothing of what I’ve done in this book or otherwise has ever been any intention to harm them or hurt them.
“The truth is something that I need to rely on, and after many, many years of lies being told about me and my family, there comes a point where, you know, again, going back to the relationship between certain members of the family and the tabloid press, those certain members have decided to get in the bed with the devil, right, to rehabilitate their image.”
Harry said he wrote his book because “38 years of having my story told by so many different people, with intentional spin and distortion felt like a good time to own my story and be able to tell it for myself”.
Harry said he wanted reconciliation with his father and brother, and forgiveness was 100% a possibility, but grilled by Bradby on whether he had taken a “flamethrower” to any bridges, the duke insisted: “Silence only allows the abuser to abuse.”
“They’ve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile up until this point. And I’m not sure how honesty is burning bridges,” Harry added.
Discussing how he hopes to get reconciliation with his family he said: “I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back. At the moment, I don’t recognize them, as much as they probably don’t recognize me.”
Harry lambasted the British press throughout the sit-down interview filmed in California, and accused the royals of being “complicit” in the conflict the media created.
“The saddest part of that is certain members of my family and the people that work for them are complicit in that conflict,” he said.
The Duke of Sussex said that “planting and leaking” by members of his family has caused “millions of words” to be written “trying to trash my wife”.
The memoir, which is due to be published on Tuesday, contains a string of revelations – with Harry’s brother the Prince of Wales the subject of a number of them.
The claims made about William include that he physically assaulted Harry in 2019, and that he was “wasted” on rum hours before his wedding.
Bradby asked the duke what his William would say to him about the book.
“He’d probably say all sorts of different things,” Harry said.
“But you know, for the last however many years, let’s just focus on the last six years, the level of planting and leaking from other members of the family means that in my mind they have written countless books, certainly millions of words have been dedicated to trying to trash my wife and myself to the point of where I had to leave my country.”
Harry also denied that he accused the royal family of racism in his Oprah interview, when he and the Duchess of Sussex revealed an unnamed family member raised concerns about how dark their unborn son’s skin would be.
“No I didn’t…the British press said that…did Meghan ever mention that they’re racist?…There was concern about his skin colour,” the duke said.
Bradby asked: “Wouldn’t you describe that as essentially racist?” Harry replied: “I wouldn’t, not having lived within that family.”
The Duke of Sussex said in the interview he had put a lot of hope into the idea the four of them would get along but stereotyping caused a “bit of a barrier” to the Prince and Princess of Wales welcoming Meghan.
Bradby said the impression was that his brother William and sister-in-law Kate did not get on “almost from the get-go” with Meghan, to which Harry replied: “Yeah, fair.”
When asked what the reason was, he said: “Lots of different reasons … I had put a lot of hope in the idea that it’d be William and Kate and me and whoever.
“I thought the four of us would bring me and William closer together, we could go out and do work together, which I did a lot as the third wheel to them, which was fun at times but also, I guess, slightly awkward at times as well.
“I don’t think they were ever expecting me to get … into a relationship with someone like Meghan who had a very successful career.”
Speaking about his wife, Harry suggested there was a lot of “stereotyping” that even he was “guilty of” at the beginning.
He told Bradby: “The fact that I had that in the back of my mind, and some of the things that my brother and sister-in-law, some of the way that they were acting or behaving definitely felt to me as though unfortunately that stereotyping was causing a bit of a barrier to them really sort of introducing or welcoming her in.”
When asked what exactly he meant by stereotyping, Harry elaborated: “American actress, divorced, biracial.”
He continued: “There’s all different parts to that and what that can mean but if you are, like a lot of my family do, if you are reading the press, the British tabloids at the same time as living the life, then there is a tendency where you could actually end up living in the tabloid bubble rather than the actual reality.”
Harry added that his brother William “raised some concerns” about his marriage to Meghan before their wedding in May 2018.
He said: “He never tried to dissuade me from marrying Meghan, but he aired some concerns very early, and said ‘this is going to be really hard for you’ and I still to this day don’t truly understand which part of what he was talking about.
“Maybe he predicted what the British press’s reaction was going to be.”
He also backed the Queen’s former lady in waiting Lady Susan Hussey who quit an honorary role in the royal household after repeatedly asking a black British domestic violence campaigner where she really came from.
“Meghan and I love Susan Hussey…She never meant any harm at all,” he said.
Harry was accused by Bradby of being “scathing” of Camilla, something that he denied.
In leaked extracts of the memoir, it has emerged Harry and Prince William begged their father not to marry Camilla but that they would welcome her into the family.
It is claimed both Harry and William did approve of their stepmother but they were not keen on their father marrying for a second time after the death of their mother Princess Diana.
Harry also alleges that Camilla leaked details of a meeting she had with William to the press.
Defending the allegations Harry told Mr Bradby: “There’s no part of any of the things that I’ve said are scathing towards any member of my family, especially not my stepmother. There are things that have happened that have been incredibly hurtful, um, some in the past, some current.
“No institution is immune to accountability or taking responsibility. So you can’t be immune to criticisms either. And you talk about, you know, scrutiny and, you know, my wife and I were scrutinized more than, probably, anybody else. I, I see a lack of scrutiny to my family towards a lot of the things that have happened in the last year.
Further discussing the telling of his father not to marry Camila, he said he was happy for them on their wedding day, saying: “William and I wanted our father to be happy and he seemed to be very, very happy with her. We asked him not to get married. He chose to and that’s, that’s his decision. But the two of them were and remain very happy together. But unfortunately with that came some extra…”
Harry also criticised “family members” for a “really horrible reaction” on the day the Queen died.
He said: “The day that she died was – was – was just a really, really horrible reaction from my family members and then by all accounts, well certainly from what I saw and what other people probably experienced was they were on the back foot and then the briefings and the leaking and the planting, I was like ‘We’re here to celebrate the life of granny and to mourn her loss, can we come together as a family?’ but I don’t know – I don’t know how we collectively – how we change that”.
He also discussed how he felt during the funeral procession of his mother and he wouldn’t accept any suggestion his brother could work behind the coffin on his own.
He said: “There was a lot of conversations that happened around times like that, of which I wasn’t part of, and William wasn’t part of, he was probably more part of it than I was. But, you know, the decision was made for both of us to walk behind, uh, our mother’s coffin. And there’s absolutely no way that I would let him do that by himself. And there’s absolutely no way that he would let me do that by, by myself. It was, if it was role reversal.
He added: “So, you know, it happened, the memories of the bridles chinking, the memories of the bridles chinking, you know, going down the mall, the hooves going down the, the concrete and the occasional, you know, gravel underneath the foot and the wails from the crowd. But otherwise complete silence is something that will stick with me forever.
He compared the difference between his mother’s funeral and the Queen saying: “recently I was, we, my brother and I were walking the same route, and we sort of joked to each other and said, at least we know the way. But otherwise it was very similar. The only difference was the levels of emotion. Because our grandmother had finished life. There was more, I think, of a celebration and respect and recognition to what she had accomplished. Whereas our mother was taken away far too young.
Describing what he was searching for in the file of his mother’s death he said: “I think at that point I was looking for, I was looking for, I was looking for evidence that it was, that it actually happened, that it was true. But I was also looking for something to hurt, because at that point I was still pretty numb to the whole thing. That was, again, my body, my sort of nervous system just kind of shut down and said like, let’s not go there.”
While he discussed with Mr Bradby why he took the decision to be driven through the tunnel in Paris in his 20s where his mother died when he was there during the Rugby World cup.
He said: “I was like, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s do this. But also, again, there were still so many question marks that were unanswered, especially from the inquest. You know, William and I were sat in a room, and we were told that the event was like a bicycle chain. And if you remove just one of those links from the chain, the end result doesn’t happen. And he, cause that was our specific question was like, where did the paparazzi fit in that? And his response was, you remove one of those links, i.e. the paparazzi? And the result wouldn’t have been the same.”
Buckingham Palace has been contacted for comment.
