Prince Harry has accused the royals of being “in bed with the devil” over their links to the tabloid press and admitted Meghan did not get on well with William and Kate “from the get-go”.
In an interview with ITV, the Duke of Sussex insisted he had “no intention of harming” or “hurting” his brother or King Charles with his memoir Spare, which includes a series of explosive allegations.
He also denied allegations of racism had been made towards the royal family when he and Meghan were interviewed by American TV presenter Oprah Winfrey.
Separately, speaking on US show 60 Minutes, Harry said he once saw his stepmother Camilla, the Queen consort, as “the villain” and revealed he was still not on speaking terms with William or Charles.
In a wide-ranging interview with ITV presenter Tom Bradby, Harry said it was “important to acknowledge” his past drug use after he admitted in his book to taking cocaine, cannabis and magic mushrooms.
He also claimed there was a “horrendous reaction” from members of his family on the day Queen Elizabeth died, with “lectures”, “leaks” and “plants”.
Addressing the “relationship between certain members of the family and the tabloid press,” Harry said: “These certain members have decided to get into bed with the devil, haven’t they? To rehabilitate their image.
“If you need to do that, or you want to do that, you decide to do that, well, that’s a choice. That’s up to you.
“But the moment rehabilitation comes at the expense of others – me, other members of my family – then that’s where I draw the line.”
Harry accused of being ‘biting’ with Camilla
Bradby suggested Harry was “quite consistently scathing” in his memoirs about his “stepmother and the press”.
An excerpt Harry read from his book said he and William “endorse Camilla” but asked her father Charles not to marry her.
“Soon after our private summits with her, she started playing the long game,” Harry writes.
“A campaign aimed at marriage and ultimately the Crown, with father’s blessing we boasted.
“Stories began to appear all over the place in all the papers about his private conversation with Willie, stories containing precise details, none of which had come from Willie, of course. They could only have been leaked by the other person present.” .
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1:03 What we learned from Harry’s interview
Read more: Harry cuts a sad, indulgent and naive figure in his memoirs
In his interview with ITV, Harry denied that he “should be upset with any member of my family, especially not my stepmother”.
The Duke said he wanted “reconciliation” with his family but “there has to be some accountability”.
He told Bradby, “I think there are probably a lot of people who, after watching the documentary and reading the book, will say, ‘How can you forgive your family for what they’ve done?’ People have already told me.
“I said, forgiveness is 100% a possibility because I would like to have 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.”
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0:38 Prince Harry in line with Charles
Camilla was “the bad one”
In his interview with 60 Minutes host Anderson Cooper on CBS, Harry said he once saw Camilla as “the bad guy” and “dangerous”.
“He was the third person in his marriage. He needed to rehabilitate his image,” she told Cooper.
“The need to have rehabilitated her image … that made her dangerous because of the connections she was forging within the British press.”
Image: Harry said he once saw Camilla as a ‘villain’
He added: “And there was an open willingness on both sides to share information and with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there would be people or bodies left on the street because of that.”
Asked if he and William urged Charles not to marry Camilla, he said: “We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought it was going to cause more harm than good.”
William and Kate did not get on with Meghan ‘from the start’
Discussing Kate and William’s relationship with Meghan, Harry said the couple were “suits fans” but there were “a lot of stereotypes” about her being an “American, divorced, biracial actress”.
Bradby said the impression was that the Prince and Princess of Wales “almost from the start” did not “get on” with Meghan.
“Fair?” asked the presenter.
“Yeah, right,” Harry replied.
The prince said his brother “never tried to dissuade him” from marrying Meghan but “raised some concerns very early on” and claimed William told him: “This is going to be very difficult for you “.
“Maybe he predicted what the reaction of the British press would be,” added Harry.
Harry addresses an alleged physical attack by William
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1:53 Prince Harry: “I saw red mist in William”
In his book, Harry claims he was physically attacked by William during a dispute over his marriage to Meghan.
He told ITV that he and his brother “used to fight all the time” as younger brothers, but there was a different “level of frustration” in the alleged incident.
“I saw this red mist on him,” Harry said.
“I can pretty much guarantee today that if I wasn’t going through therapy sessions the way I was and could process that anger and frustration, I would have fought 100 percent.”
Harry said he didn’t think his brother and father would read his book, but added: “I really hope they do.”
Bradby suggested that Harry had “not so much burned your bridges” with the royal family as “brought them a flamethrower”.
“Well, up until this point they’ve shown absolutely no desire to reconcile,” Harry replied.
“And I’m not sure how honesty is burning bridges. You know, silence just allows the abuser to abuse, right? So I don’t know how staying silent is ever going to make things better.”
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0:58 Harry “needs help, not criticism”
Harry “doesn’t text” William or speak to King Charles
In his CBS interview, Harry said he currently “doesn’t text” William and hasn’t spoken to his father in a “long time”.
“Are you talking to William now, are you texting?” Cooper asked him.
“Not currently, but I hope we can find peace,” Harry replied.
When asked how long it had been since she spoke to Charles, she said: “We haven’t spoken in a long time, no, recently.”
The “sibling rivalry” with William began at Eton
Harry said his “sibling rivalry” with William began when the pair attended Eton College.
He recalled how his older brother told him to pretend “we don’t know each other” when they were at school together.
“It hurt at the time,” Harry told 60 Minutes.
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Charles warned Harry that he faced a “suicide mission” from the press
In his bid to tackle the tabloids, Harry told ITV his father warned him it was “probably a suicide mission to try and change” the press.
The Duke claimed there was a “distorted narrative” that he and Meghan “wanted to leave to go make money” when they left as members of the royal family.
He said the couple decided to put their “mental health first” and asked for “help and support”.
“At the time, I didn’t fully understand the extent, or the extent to which the family was complicit in the pain and suffering my wife was going through,” Harry added.
“The only group of people who could have helped or prevented this from happening were the very people who were encouraging it to happen.”
Harry slams Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘horrible’ article on Meghan
Image: Image: AP
Harry called Jeremy Clarkson’s recent article about Meghan “horrible”, “hurtful” and “cruel”.
Clarkson was heavily criticized for her column, published in The Sun newspaper, which said she “dreams of the day when (Meghan) is paraded naked through the streets of every city in Britain while people chant: ‘Shame! ‘ and throw lumps of excrement at him.”
Harry told ITV: “What he said was horrible and hurtful and cruel to my wife, but it also encourages other people in the UK and around the world, especially men, to think it’s okay to treat women women this way.”
Harry said “the world” was clamoring for “some form of commentary from the monarchy” but “the silence is deafening, to put it mildly”.
“Everything that has to do with my wife, after six years, they haven’t said anything,” he added. “But they are willing to defend themselves regularly.”
Harry denies that the royal family was accused of racism in the Oprah interview
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0:55 “I never accused the family of racism”
Asked about his June 2021 interview with Winfrey, Harry said his wife’s claims that a family member made “concerning” comments about their son Archie’s skin color related to “a unconscious bias” and not with racism.
The Duke also said the recent incident at Buckingham Palace involving black activist Ngozi Fulani and Lady Susan Hussey, the late Queen’s lady-in-waiting, “is a very good example of the environment within the institution”.
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