Prince Harry says he never had to be like this in TV interview – The Hollywood Reporter

Certain members of the British royal family may have been avoiding television on Sunday.

After a week of unprecedented and hugely damaging revelations taken from prince harrymemories of Replacement — which accidentally went on sale early — began airing a highly publicized series of interviews with the Duke of Sussex ahead of the book’s official launch on Tuesday, with the prospect of throwing more fuel at his now very public break with his family. .

“I don’t know how staying silent will make things better,” Harry told Tom Bradby on Britain’s ITV, the first of the interviews to be shown.

In the opening moments of the 90-minute talk in Los Angeles, Harry said his family had shown “absolutely no willingness to reconcile” and that he had spent the last six years trying to communicate with them through conversations, letters and emails. electronics. . “The saddest thing is that it never had to be like this,” he said of this growing separation that culminated in his decision to speak publicly about his grievances.

Speaking of “sibling rivalry” with his brother, Harry claimed that he had been on “different paths” with William since the death of their mother, Princess Diana. He also claimed that Kate Middleton and Markle didn’t get along from the start. “I thought the four of us would join William and me… but I don’t think they expected me to be in a relationship with someone like Meghan, who had a very successful career.”

He said much of his family was reading the press, going so far as to accuse Queen Camilla of leaking private conversations to newspapers, and that they were “living in the tabloid bubble instead of reality.” She added that her brother and sister-in-law were taking into account what was being written about Markle and the stereotypes that she was a “divorced, biracial American actress.” She later said that she soon became “Meghan versus Kate” with Middleton threatened by a “new kid on the block stealing the spotlight”.

Harry claimed that his brother’s team spent years “destroying” the image of him and Meghan in the media and that their eventual decision to leave for the US was turned into a false narrative that they were doing so simply to make money. “We were dedicated to a life of service,” he said.

One incident he refuted was that he and Markle had accused the royal family of racism in their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey, claiming that it was the British press that explicitly stated this and in reality they were simply referring to “unconscious bias”, and not racism.

Despite all that was said and done and the damning details in both the book and the interview, Harry said he was “100 percent” sure he would reconcile with his family, but said it could only happen if the “main antagonist” who had created the split, the British tabloids had nothing to do with it.

“I hope that the reconciliation between my family and us will have a ripple effect around the world,” he added.

Talking with Anderson Cooper for CBS’ 60 Minutes: Interview with Prince Harry — the first with royalty in the US on Replacement — Harry explained that he was now speaking publicly because “every time I’ve tried to do it in private there have been briefings, leaks and planting stories against me and my wife.” In a clip released before the hour-long TV special aired, Harry claimed that Buckingham Palace had “spoon-fed” journalists, who then refused to release a statement to protect him and Meghan Markle. “There comes a point where silence is a betrayal.”

Harry also detailed what he felt when his mother, Princess Diana, was killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997, and the days and years that followed. He explained to Cooper that after his father told him the tragic news, he struggled to cope and process what happened. “For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was, she was gone,” Harry said. “Partly, you know, she would never do this to us, but also partly, maybe this is all part of a plan.”

Trying to cry, Harry said he was done with alcohol, drugs and psychedelics. Years later, at the age of 20, he said that he saw the police report and some photos of the accident to try to understand everything. Harry still held out hope that his mother might be alive until she visited Paris at age 23 and led his driver through the tunnel where his mother died, saying, “I need to make this trip.” . I need to travel the same route.

Harry added that he and his brother were not happy with the results of a 2006 police investigation into the crash and considered reopening the case “because there were so many gaps and so many holes.” Which just didn’t add up and didn’t make sense.” They never did.

In 2022, before Queen Elizabeth II died, Harry told Cooper that his family had not included him in their travel plans to visit her. At the time, Harry was in London for a charity event when it was announced that the Queen was under medical supervision at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.

“I asked my brother, I said: ‘What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there? And then a couple of hours later, all the family members who live in the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together,” he told Cooper. “A plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats.” Harry said that he was not invited and that the queen had died when he arrived at Balmoral Castle.

A third interview, with Michael Strahan for Good morning america – will air on January 9.

The television appearances come after several days of extremely personal claims and incidents of family discord taken from early readings of Replacement. In addition to describing how he lost his virginity (reportedly in a field behind a pub with an “old lady” when he was 17), Harry also described various bouts of drug use, including trying magic mushrooms on a party held at Harry’s house. Courteney Cox. In a passage that drew widespread criticism, Harry said that as the co-pilot of an Apache helicopter in Afghanistan, he killed 25 Taliban soldiers, a claim that military veterans say could increase his personal safety risk.

The most incendiary revelation, however, which generated front-page headlines in the UK and around the world, involved the alleged 2019 fight with William, whom he claimed called Markle “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”, which resulted in a fight. that he saw Harry being “knocked to the ground”, where he landed “on top of the dog’s bowl, which broke under my back, the pieces cut me”.

The details of Replacement they arrive just a few weeks after Netflix harry and meghan documentary series, in which the prince first targeted the royal family with allegations that William’s team had offered stories about the Sussexes to the British press to divert the negative attention that the then Cambridges received.

So far there has been no comment from Buckingham Palace.

Carly Thomas contributed to this report.

Updated at 6:15 pm on January 8: Added quotes from 60 minutes interview.