Prince Harry has unleashed in not one but TWO bombshell TV interviews and to say our heads are spinning is an absolute understatement.
From dishing about his relationship with his brother Prince “Willy” William to the heartbreaking death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, “Harold” did not hold back in telling what he calls, his “truth”.
But perhaps the biggest controversy was that he delivered untold details about private moments, begging the question, is this what “privacy” looks like to the Duke of Sussex?
For his UK interview — which aired on January 9 on Channel 7, Prince Harry spoke with Tom Bradby, an ITV journalist he has known for over two decades.
The second, a US chat, he spoke to journalist Anderson Cooper, in a 60 Minutes interview that aired an hour earlier in Australia on Channel 10.
While Harry said a lot during these sit-downs, the nuance of what he didn’t say was more telling.
But have these interviews opened a larger can of worms?
Prince Harry suspects his family of leaking stories
Perhaps one of the more eye-raising revelations was that Prince Harry suspects his family of leaking stories to the British press.
“We’re talking about an antagonist, which is the British press, specifically the tabloids, who want to create as much conflict as possible,” he told the ITV journalist.
“The saddest part of that is certain members of my family, and the people [who] work for them are complicit in that conflict.”
During his chat with Anderson, Harry referred to the UK media as “dragons” and said that his family would still be a “fairly dysfunctional family like a lot, but at the heart of it, there is a family, without question.”
“I think it’s hard for anybody to imagine a family dynamic that is so Game of Thrones,” the US journo told him.
“I don’t watch Game of Thrones, but there’s definitely dragons, and that’s a third party which is the British press,” he responded.
Prince Harry alluded to the fact that Camilla was the one to leak information
In the lead-up to his father’s wedding to Queen Consort Camilla Parker Bowles, Harry saw details leaked to the British press.
The information came from conversations he had had with William and Camilla, however, confirmed his brother didn’t leak them.
As for Charles’ marriage to Camilla?
“We asked him not to get married. He chose to, and that’s his decision, but the two of them are very happy together,” he told Bradby, while saying to Cooper, that he hoped the wedding made Camilla less “dangerous” to him.
Kate Middleton was the perfect “sister he never had” until Meghan Markle entered the fold
When the Princess of Wales married his brother, Harry felt like she was a sister he never had.
“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,” he told ITV.
But then came Meghan.
Even though William and Kate were fans of her TV show Suits, Meghan was not what they were expecting.
“I don’t think they were ever expecting me to get into a relationship with someone like Meghan, who had a very successful career.”
“There was a lot of stereotyping that was happening,” he said.
“It felt to me as though that was causing a barrier to them welcoming her in: American actress, divorced, biracial.” Ooft.
Furthermore, Harry admitted that the Royal “fab four” concept was a media construct.
Prince Harry said that it was Kate who made Meghan cry before the wedding
While the tabloids said what Harry called “25 different versions” of the story, the truth behind whom made who cry before his nuptials finally came out.
Kate was the one who had actually bought Meghan to tears and during a tense meeting between the four, Kate had gripped “the edge of a chair so tightly that her knuckles were white”.
Meghan described a moment of forgetfulness by Kate as “baby brain” and everything erupted.
“Kate tells Meg they’re not close enough to talk that way, and William says, ‘That’s not what happens here in Britain’,” an excerpt from Harry’s memoir Spare detailed.
“Why wasn’t it corrected?” Harry told ITV.
“They [the Royal Family] were more than happy to put out statements for less volatile things. The palace still could have come out and said, ‘this never happened’.”
As for whether William told his brother not to marry the US actress: “It wasn’t that he tried to dissuade me from marrying Meghan, but he aired some concerns early on and said, ‘This is going to be really hard for you’. I still don’t really understand that.”
Prince William called Harry “spare” during a tense discussion about Harry’s wedding beard
For royalists worldwide, one of the most shocking fallouts of the royal scandal has been William and Harry’s relationship breakdown.
The prince lamented that after the death of their mother “were on different trajectories, dealing with the same traumatic experience in different ways” and by the time they became adults, he believed his older brother had “insisted on turning our brotherhood into some kind of private Olympiad”.
According to the 38-year-old, one of the more vicious fights erupted over a small detail at his wedding – his beard.
A former military man, Harry had to gain permission from the Queen to sport facial hair during the ceremony.
While the late Queen agreed, William had other ideas.
“This beard felt to me at the time like the new Harry, as almost like a shield for my anxiety … and I think William found it hard that other people told him to shave his off,” Harry told Tom.
However, another altercation between the pair became physical.
“Me and William used to fight all the time, when we were kids. What was different here was this level of frustration.
“I talked [in the memoir] about the red mist that I had for so many years, I saw this red mist in him.
“I can pretty much guarantee that, if I wasn’t in therapy, then I would have fought back, but I didn’t.”
During an interaction at the late Prince Philip’s funeral, William asked Harry to look him in the eye.
“Harold, you must listen to me — I just want you to be happy, Harold. I swear. I swear on Mummy’s life,” William had said to him, using the “secret code” words reserved for extreme crisis.
“It stopped me cold. I didn’t believe him. It is heartbreaking. This whole thing is incredibly sad, but there’s a way out of it.”
Prince Harry drove through the Parisian tunnel where Princess Diana died
One of the more heartbreaking and poignant moments was when Harry reflected on the loss of his mother and during the ITV interview, he explained how his father and told him about Diana’s death.
“Darling boy, Mummy’s been in a car crash,” King Charles had told him at the time.
As for their walk behind her coffin, the boys had decided to do it together — one would not do it without the other.
“There was this weight on my chest for so many years. And I was never able to cry,” he said of his mum’s death during the 60 Minutes interview.
“The idea that she’d been taken away and that William and I were now motherless, I couldn’t understand,” he recalled.
“I needed proof that she was in the car.”
At the age of 23, Harry travelled through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel.
“I needed to take this journey, I needed to take this at the same speed,” he said, before adding:
“When you’ve actually experienced the same thing which you assume your mother’s driver was experiencing at the time, then it’s really hard to understand how some people have come away with the conclusions of that night.
“And that the people [who] were predominantly responsible for it all got away with it.”
Harry also explained that Charles had apologised to him, saying he should have “got you help years ago”.
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