Prince Harry speaking during an interview with ITV's Tom Bradby for the programme Harry: The Interview. Photo / PA via AP
Prince Harry has been grilled in a no-holds-barred interview ahead of the release of his controversial tell-all memoir.
The Duke of Sussex sat down with British journalist Tom Bradby for ITV to discuss Spare, where he was challenged on his decision to expose so many family secrets.
“The thing that’s saddest is it never needed to be this way – it never needed to get to this point,” said Harry.
“None of this is intentionally to harm anyone in my family.”
However, Bradby - a longtime friend of Harry and William’s was quick to push back: “But the portrait of your brother in the book IS harmful to him.”
The journalist also suggested what William’s defence may be to some of Harry’s accusations - including the explosive claim that William became physically violent with him in a fight over Meghan - with Harry hitting back that it was merely “a list of assumptions you’re making”.
The Duke of Sussex claimed that he was still open to reconciliation, although he doesn’t believe Charles or William will read his book.
“I really hope they do, but I don’t think they will. And with regard to this interview, I don’t know if they’ll be watching this or not - but what I have to say to them, and what they have to say to me, will be in private and I hope it can stay that way.”
He explained that he was “grateful” for the opportunity to share his side.
“Thirty-eight years of having my story told by so many different people, with intentional spin and distortion … it felt like a good time to own my story and tell it for myself. I don’t think if I was still part of the institution, I’d have been given this opportunity. So I’m really grateful.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Bradby pressed Harry on his history of drug use - including cocaine - asking him: “Do you really think the third in line to the throne taking a class A drug is not a matter of public interest? Do you accept that it is a matter of public interest?”
Rather than answer directly, a defensive Harry shot back: “What’s a matter of public interest is the relationship between the institution with the tabloid press.”
During another tense exchange, Bradby questioned Harry about his relationship with his stepmother Camilla, where he used the word “scathing” to describe an excerpt about the now-Queen Consort.
“Scathing?” Harry questioned Bradby’s choice of words.
“There are no parts that are scathing toward any member of my family. Especially my stepmother. [But] No institution is immune to accountability or taking responsibility. You can’t be immune to criticism either. My wife and I were scrutinised more than anybody else. I see a lack of scrutiny toward my family to a lot of things that have happened in the last year.”
Addressing the longstanding rift between himself and Meghan and William and Kate, Harry said it was “fair” to say his brother and sister-in-law didn’t get on with his then-girlfriend from the first meeting. He said it was for “lots of different reasons.
“I thought the – you know, the four of us would, you know, bring me and William closer together, we could go out and do work together, which 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 Bradby.
“I don’t think they were ever expecting me to get – or to become – to get into a relationship with – with someone like Meghan who had, you know, a very successful career.
“There was a lot of stereotyping that was happening, that I was guilty of as well, at the beginning.”
Harry explained the stereotypes as “American actress”, “divorced” and “biracial”.
“Some of the things that my brother and sister-in-law – some of the way that they were acting or behaving definitely felt to me as though unfortunately that stereotyping was causing a bit of a barrier to them really sort of, you know, introducing or welcoming her in,” he said.
“If you’re reading the press - like a lot of my family do - at the same time as you’re living your life, then you can end up living in a tabloid bubble rather than the reality.”
However, Harry did clear up speculation about William’s advice before he married Meghan, admitting his brother never tried to talk him out of it.
“No he never tried to dissuade me from marrying Meghan,” Harry said.
“But he aired some concerns, very early, and said you know, ‘This is gonna be really hard for you’ and I still to this day don’t truly understand which part of what he was talking about.”
Harry also revealed his fear of losing Meghan and becoming “a single dad” was a big factor in his decision to remove himself from the royal family.
Harry explained that while writing his book, he’d had to relive the night in 1997 when his mother, Princess Diana, died in a car accident, admitting he has “compassion” for his father, who had the heartbreaking task of breaking the news to his two sons.
“You know, my father coming in, in his dressing gown and sharing that news with me, only now as part of writing the book, that I really think about how many hours he’d been awake.”
Harry added that was part of the reason “why we are here now”, with himself and Meghan having quit royal duties in early 2020.
“I don’t want history to repeat itself. I do not want to be a single dad. And I certainly don’t want my children to have a life without a mother or a father.”
Plenty of scandalous stories from the controversial royal tell-all have already been revealed due to early leaks and a mistake resulting in the book hitting shelves in Spain, five days before its release.
Bradby himself admitted that after reading it, he needed “a long lie-down”.
Among the most shocking details is Harry’s admission that he killed 25 Taliban fighters while serving in Afghanistan, his history of illicit drug use, and the accusation that William became physically violent with him in a fight over “rude” Meghan in 2019.
Harry’s interview with Bradby, a longtime friend who famously interviewed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in Africa in 2019, comes as the royal family’s senior advisers have reportedly set up a de facto “war room” to deal with any more potentially damaging stories.
According to Page Six, a plan was drawn up to handle the explosive claims from both Harry’s book and the subsequent publicity interviews.
After his interview with Bradby, Harry’s sit-down with journalist Anderson Cooper will air on US 60 Minutes, with Good Morning America and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to follow.
Page Six reports the team of senior aides had previously “racked their brains” to come up with every possibly story Harry would include in Spare – and had predicted the fight with William would be aired.
As the fallout continues from Harry’s revelations, it’s also being reported that he’s been written out of plans for his father King Charles’ coronation.
While his invitation to the May 6 event hasn’t been revoked, it’s understood the Duke of Sussex will “play no role” at the ceremony.
“I can reveal that Prince Harry has been written out of the script for the coronation, with no official role in the service if he attends. Breaking with tradition, Charles will scrap royal dukes kneeling and paying homage to the monarch. Only William will perform that role,” Roya Nikkah, royal editor of the Sunday Times, tweeted today.
Spare will be available to buy in New Zealand bookstores on Wednesday.
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