Prince Harry had a lot to say!
The Duke of Sussex sat down for his first television interview on Sunday ahead of the release of his highly-anticipated memoir Spare. During the conversation with Tom Bradby for ITV, Harry covered several topics, including the death of his mom Princess Diana, the racism allegations against the royals, and his bitter feud with the family. Check out what the prince had to say (below):
Related: Prince Harry Will No Longer Have Role In King Charles’ Coronation!
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Princess Diana’s Death
Opening up about his mom’s fatal car accident, Harry shared that he still has a ton of questions about what happened that tragic day in 1997:
“There’s a lot of things that are unexplained. I’ve been asked before whether I want to open up another inquiry. I don’t really see the point at this stage. But I think anyone who knows — again, this is the most amazing thing that, of over the last, what, five years, especially the last two years, the amount of people that I’ve met here in America, everyone knows where they were and what they were doing the night my mother died. And I never thought about that at all.”
Harry even drove through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, France, and asked to look at pictures from the accident in order to better understand what transpired that night of the car crash:
“I saw the photographs of the reflection of all the paparazzi in the window at the same time. I saw the back of her blonde hair, you know, slumped on the back of the seat.”
Some of the more graphic photos from the scene were not included – something the Better Up CIO said he was “grateful” for:
“But I was, I think I, at that point, I was looking for, I was looking for, I was looking for evidence that it was after that it actually happened, that it was true,” he said. “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.’”
Despite feeling there are so many things that have been left unanswered, the 38-year-old clarified he didn’t “really see the point” of opening up another inquiry years after the case.
Royal Exit
The horrific loss of his mother – and concern for his wife Meghan Markle’s life – is part of the reason why the couple stepped away from their royal duties and moved out of the UK. Harry explained he “took myself back to that moment” when he was 12 years old and his father King Charles III told him Princess Diana died:
“I took myself back to that moment and tried to remember as much as possible. You know, my father coming in, in his dressing gown and sharing that news with me, only now as part of writing the book, that I really think about how many hours he’d been awake. And the compassion that I have for him, as a parent having to sit with that for many, many hours, ringing up friends of his, trying to work out, how the hell do I break this to my two sons.”
He continued:
“I never want to be in that position, part of the reason why we are here now. I never, ever want to be in that position. I don’t want history to repeat itself. I do not want to be a single dad. And I certainly don’t want my children to have a life without a mother or a father.”
Prince William & Princess Catherine
Elsewhere in the interview, Harry took aim at Prince William and Princess Catherine AKA Kate Middleton, saying there was “a lot of stereotyping that was happening, that I was guilty of as well, at the beginning” of his relationship with Meghan due to her acting career:
“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, you know, introducing or welcoming her in.”
Bradby goes on to ask Harry about the relationship between the Prince and Princess of Wales and Meghan, saying:
“But the impression is that—that they just—there’s almost from the get-go it’s just they don’t get on. Fair?”
When the Archewell founder agreed, he explained there were “lots of different reasons” behind why they do not get along:
“I had put a lot of hope in the idea that, you know, 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. But, yeah, I don’t think they were ever expecting me to get into a relationship with someone like Meghan who had, you know, a very successful career.”
He continued:
“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 were causing a bit of a barrier to them really sort of introducing or welcoming her in.”
When pressed on what he specifically meant, Harry responded:
“Well, American actress, divorced, biracial, there’s – there’s all different parts to that. 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.”
When asked if his older brother tried to stop him from marry Meghan, Harry insisted the 40-year-old “never did that”:
“No, he never tried to dissuade me from marrying Megan, but he aired some concerns, very early on and said, you know, this is gonna be really hard for you. And I still to this day, I don’t truly understand which part of what he was talking about. But maybe, you know, maybe he predicted what the British press’s reaction was gonna be.”
Beyond the stereotyping, the father of two shared that the media pit both Meghan and Catherine against each other, leading to a lot of the problems in the relationship:
“The idea of the four of us being together was always a hope for me. Before it was Meghan, whoever it was going to be, I always hoped that the four of us would get on. But very quickly it became Meghan versus Kate. And that, when it plays out so publicly, you can’t hide from that, right? Especially when within my family you have the newspapers laid out pretty much in every single palace and house that is around. It creates this competition, and if you’re the new kids on the block and you come in and you’re stealing the limelight, not a limelight that you’ve asked to be put in or have.”
Racism Accusations:
Of course, Harry opened up about one of the most talked-about moments from his and Meghan’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021: the racist comment from one of the family members. As you may recall, Meghan claimed in the chat that there were some “concerns and conversations about how dark [Archie‘s] skin might be when he’s born.” The royals soon faced backlash for being racist – and many people were guessing as to who made the problematic comment.
However, it looks like Harry is backtracking a little bit as he denied calling his family racist! When Bradby said “in the Oprah interview you accused members of your family of racism,” the prince quickly fired back:
“No. The British press said that, right? Did Meghan ever mention ‘they’re racists’?”
To which Bradby said:
“She said there were troubling comments about Archie’s skin color. … Wouldn’t you describe that as essentially racist?”
Harry said he wouldn’t call the incident racist, “not having lived within that family.” He continued:
“The difference between racism and unconscious bias… the two things are different. Once it’s been acknowledged or pointed out to you as an individual, otherwise an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you, therefore, have an opportunity to learn and grow from that… otherwise, unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism.”
Harry then referenced the racist incident at the palace involving Lady Susan Hussey who asked a racially-charged question to the founder of the charity Sistah Space, Ngoni Fulani:
“What happened to Ngozi Fulani is a very good example of the environment within the institution, and why after our Oprah interview, they said that they were gonna bring in a diversity tsar. That hasn’t happened. Everything they said was gonna happen hasn’t happened. I’ve always been open to wanting to help them understand their part in it, and especially when you are the monarchy, at the—you have a responsibility and quite rightly people hold you to a higher standard than others.”
Defending Tell-all Memoir
No doubt, Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir is bound to drive the wedge between him and the royal family even deeper. But according to the royal, the book was never meant to hurt anyone:
“I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family. I always do. Nothing of what I’ve done in this book or otherwise has ever been with 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 into bed with the devil, right? To rehabilitate their image.”
He continued:
“If you need to do that, or you want to do that you choose to do that. Well, that is a choice. That’s up to you. But the moment that that rehabilitation comes at the detriment of others, me, other members of my family, then that’s where I draw the line.”
Speaking on reconciling with the royals, Harry expressed:
“I wish that it would stop. I want reconciliation. But first, there needs to be some accountability. You can’t just continue to say to me that I’m delusional and paranoid when all the evidence is stacked up.”
When asked how he justifies spilling the family’s dirty laundry, Harry replied that “it never needed to get to this point,” explaining:
“Well, there’s been a motto, a family motto, of never complain, never explain. And what people have realized now through the Netflix documentary and numerous stories coming out over the years is that that was just a motto. There was a lot of complaining and there was a lot of explaining. We’re six years into it now and I have spent every single year of those six doing everything I can privately to get through to my family. And the thing that is the saddest about this, Tom, is it never needed to be this way.”
He added:
“I’ve had conversations, I’ve written letters, I’ve written emails, and everything is just, no, you, this is not what’s happening. You are imagining it.’ And that’s really hard to take. And if it had stopped by the point that I fled my home country with my wife and my son fearing for our lives, then maybe this would’ve turned out differently.”
There’s more to come as an interview with 60 minutes and Good Morning America will be released soon! Reactions to Harry’s confessions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below!
[Image via ITV News/YouTube]
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