Prince Harry is continuing to serve up some piping hot tea ahead of the release of his memoir Spare!
As you know, the 38-year-old royal’s interview with Tom Bradby for ITV first dropped on Sunday, where he got very candid about the death of his mother, Princess Diana, the allegations of racism against the royal family, and more. Now, an intimate conversation with Anderson Cooper on CBS’ 60 Minutes has dropped, and Harry once again did not hold back when talking about life as a royal.
Related: Prince Harry Will No Longer Have Role In King Charles’ Coronation!
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Feuding Brothers
Speaking on why he has been sharing a lot of personal and emotional secrets about the family over the past two years, Harry explained that it was all part of an effort to defend Meghan Markle and “squash” the notion that she came between him and Prince William:
“My brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years. None of anything that I’ve written, anything I’ve included is ever intended to hurt my family. But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers.”
Instead, Harry said that the strain between them was there long before the Suits actress came into the picture. While the brothers seemed to be inseparable growing up, in reality, the prince claimed they were living separate lives ever since the death of their mom. In fact, Harry recalled that the early example of their rivalry was when his older sibling would tell him to “pretend we don’t know each other,” whenever they were in school, saying:
“At the time it hurt. I couldn’t make sense of it. I was like, ‘What do you mean? We’re now at the same school.’ Like, ‘I haven’t seen you for ages, now we get to hang out together.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, no, when we’re at school we don’t know each other.’ And I took that personally. But yes, you’re absolutely right, you hit the nail on the head. Like, we had a very similar traumatic experience, and then we— we dealt with it two very different ways.”
According to his memoir, their feud eventually escalated to the point they got into a physical altercation over Meghan. He told Anderson of that moment:
“It was a buildup of — frustration, I think, on his part. It was at a time where he was being told certain things by people within his office. And at the same time, he was consuming a lot of the tabloid press, a lot of the stories. And he had a few issues which were based not on reality. And I was defending my wife. And he was coming for my wife — she wasn’t there at the time but through the things that he was saying. I was defending myself.”
He continued:
“And we moved from one room into the kitchen. And his frustrations were growing and growing and growing. He was shouting at me. I was shouting back at him. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t pleasant at all. And he snapped. And he pushed me to the floor.”
The Archewell founder claimed he landed on a dog bowl – which left marks on his back:
“[William] apologized afterwards. It was a pretty nasty experience”
Camilla Is Press Savvy
We can imagine King Charles won’t like this! Prince Harry took aim at his stepmom, Camilla Parker Bowles, and her longtime affair with his dad. He called the Queen Consort’s “campaign” for the throne “dangerous” due to “the need for her to rehabilitate her image” before she could marry the monarch:
“That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen Consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that.”
And Harry and William were often stuck in the middle of the press storm. He accused Camilla and Charles of using the two to get positive press for themselves:
“If you are led to believe, as a member of the family, that being on the front page, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public, then that’s what you— that’s what you’re going to do.”
He even wrote in the book that Camilla “sacrificed me on her personal P.R. altar.” Damn. Harry also noted that the entire family is heavily influenced by the stories about them in the press:
“My family read the tabloids, you know? It’s laid out– at breakfast when everyone comes together. So, whether you walk around saying you believe it or not, it’s still leaving an imprint in your mind. So if you have that judgment based on a stereotype right at the beginning, it’s very, very hard to get over that. And a large part of it for the family, but also the British press and numerous other people is, like, ‘He’s changed. She must be a witch. He’s changed.’ As opposed to yeah, I did change, and I’m really glad I changed. Because rather than getting drunk, falling out of clubs, taking drugs, I had now found the love of my life, and I now had the opportunity to start a family with her.”
Queen Elizabeth’s Death
As you may recall, Meghan and Harry were in London in September when they found out that Queen Elizabeth II’s health deteriorated. Initially, the couple were supposed to fly together to Scotland – but Harry ended up flying alone to Balmoral Castle and sadly arrived when the Queen already passed. Recalling that moment in the 60 minute interview, Harry said he reached out to William about the travel plans to Scotland:
“I asked my brother — I said, ‘What are your plans? How are you and Kate [Middleton] getting up there?’ And then, a couple of hours later, you know, all of the family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together, a plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats.”
When Anderson asked if he was “not invited on that plane,” Harry confirmed:
“I was not invited.”
Looking back on that day, the prince shared:
“I walked into the hall, and my aunt was there to greet me, and she asked me if I wanted to see her. I thought about it for about five seconds, thinking, ‘Is this a good idea?’ And I was, like, ‘You know what? You can do this. You need to say goodbye.’ So went upstairs, took my jacket off and walked in and just spent some time with her alone. She was in her bedroom. I was actually — I was really happy for her. Because she’d finished life. She’d completed life, and her husband [Prince Philip] was waiting for her. And the two of them are buried together.”
Dealing With Princess Diana’s Death
Elsewhere in the sit-down, Harry got more candid about the death of Princess Diana – who he thought was possibly still alive until he was 23:
“For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was— she was gone. Part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of, maybe this is all part of a plan.”
Harry also admitted he wasn’t able to cry over the loss of his mom until he was older, expressing:
“There was this weight on my chest that I felt for so many years that I was never able to cry. So I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, but– in even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum. And sometimes I watched videos online.”
Eventually, he turned to alcohol, pot, and cocaine to try to “numb” the pain of her death:
“It was obvious to us as kids the British press’ part in our mother’s misery and I had a lot of anger inside of me that luckily, I never expressed to anybody. But I resorted to drinking heavily. Because I wanted to numb the feeling, or I wanted to distract myself from how … whatever I was thinking. And I would, you know, resort to drugs as well.”
Harry said psychedelics, including ayahuasca and psilocybin mushrooms, ultimately helped with his grief:
“I would never recommend people to do this recreationally, but doing it with the right people, if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss or grief or trauma, these things have a way of working as a medicine. For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her,” he adds. “When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.”
Wow…
What are your thoughts on Harry’s interviews, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below!
[Image via 60 Minutes/YouTube]
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