Prince Harry wants to meet at the table!
In an eye-opening, genuinely honest, candid interview with GQ, the Duke of Sussex opens up about his complicated relationships with his brother and father, breaking certain generational parenting cycles, and more.
The sit-down starts with an easy question… why did he and Meghan Markle move back to the UK? He answers, revealing how important it was for him to have his children experience the British education system:
“Opportunities for the family. Being able to put the kids in a British school has meant a lot to me. I didn’t know how important it was to me. I always thought it was going to be something that we would try and do, but now they’ve been in school for two weeks. They’re loving it and it’s just giving them a whole different experience. I’m not criticizing American schools. But I think for kids at seven and five, to be able to have that comparison and to have two completely different cultural experiences is so important today. But yeah: To be back closer to my family and to be back on UK soil for longer than a few days or a week here or there. It’s nice to be back.”
The relief he feels being back home is palpable. We weren’t even there, but you can tell reading his responses, the way he’s so relaxed and open, this was definitely the right choice for him. He continues:
“I think that, having been [in the US] for six years now, and only being able to go back to the UK for short periods of time, to actually have my whole family [in the UK] with me, the place that I grew up, wanting to be able to show my kids where I grew up and have them have the experiences to some extent that I had, the good rather than necessarily the bad, provided real proper serious thinking as to: This is an opportunity, let’s do it now. It’s good to be outside of the US for the next few months, perhaps. Let things settle down for a bit and then we work it out from there. But we’ve had plans in the past, and I think for lots of people, it’s like, if you’re going to make a big move like this, that’s going to take a lot of planning. For us, it was very short.”
Reminding him “there were reasons why you guys left in the first place,” interviewer Zach Baron asks Prince Harry if he thinks “it’s going to be different [now]” or has he simply evolved his attitude surrounding everything?
Princess Diana‘s son is very clear and open here. He admits:
“I think a combination of two of those. I think that certainly our attitude has changed.”
When asked to elaborate, he replies:
“I think once you’ve been through it, once you’ve been able to talk about it and raise awareness to it, then people see it for what it is, which makes the environment slightly easier. And it’s not going to necessarily stop the behavior, but then that’s the second part, which is the behavior: My hope is that it will change. What happened back then was then, what’s happened over the last six years has been a continuation of that.”
Now, whose behavior exactly is he referring to here? Is her referring to the way he and his wife said they were treated by the royal family? Or does he mean the relentlessly zealous British media and paparazzi? He continues, mentioning his family and the press:
“There are some battles that have been fought, necessarily so. But hopefully we can all draw a line under that. And with everything else that’s going on in the world, there’s aspects of the past that I’m sure all of us, me, my family, some of the British press, that we’d all like to leave behind us and work for the greater good.”
Prince Harry has been processing a lot of unresolved trauma and feelings in therapy, which has helped him get to a point where he finally feels free enough to leave the heaviness behind and move forward.
Related: Prince Harry’s Rugby Appearance Turns Into Family Reunion
Talking about grief, he shares:
“Therapy was the thing that really changed it for me, because it gave me permission to grieve and to acknowledge the fact that yeah, losing your mom really sucks, and you’re allowed to cry about it.”
He hadn’t cried for 20 years, so his emotions had been manifesting in other ways. Thankfully therapy really helped:
“I think the harder you try to cry, the harder it becomes to actually pull that off. But yes, crying eventually feels great. It really does. The suppression of grief, the suppression of feelings is a really interesting thing, but when I tried therapy, it didn’t take me that long to realize, ‘Wow, I’ve been numb to this.’ So when I talk about, yes, it’s become easier and become harder, or better and harder, it’s become better because now I can be really emotionally connected to my friends, family, and specifically my children.”
On the topic of grief, he’s asked about his “complicated relationship” with his brother Prince William and father King Charles, and he once again shows a lot of growth here, responding:
“There’s sibling disagreements, there’s broken relationships between kids and their parents, kids and one parent. That continues to come up with me the whole time by people that I speak to [regarding grief]. So I know how relatable it is. That’s probably why there’s so much fascination. And then people maybe look at us [the royal family] and go, ‘How are you going to work it out?’ And then, maybe, how I see you’re going to work it out, maybe that will help me work my stuff out. And some people don’t want it to work out. I want it to work out.”
So there you go. Full confirmation that Prince Harry wants to reconcile with his family. And to make it abundantly clear, when he says “some people don’t want it to work out,” he is NOT referring to his brother — or anyone in the royal family for that matter. He’s speaking generally about other people, likely ones he’s met in grief talks, and how everyone is free to choose their own path regarding forgiveness and healing.
A spokesperson for the Duke confirmed the intention behind his words to People magazine, insisting it “was absolutely not intended as a swipe at his brother or any other member of his family. The comment was made in a general context and was not directed at his family in any way.”
Prince Harry wants to move beyond the “scars” of the past, telling GQ:
“Look, scars stick around forever, but what your perception is and what your mindset is to those things that have happened, certainly letting go of the past, that’s something that I would encourage everybody to do. If there’s certain things from the past that are still affecting your every day, that’s harder to let go of. But yeah, for me, there’s enough drama in the world and enough drama in people’s lives than to continue with issues with family.”
Like we said, an evolved, mature way of looking at things!
Hopefully all goes well and the entire family can at least start to find better ground in time for the holidays.
To read his full in-depth interview with GQ, click here.
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