It may well be that certain members of the British royal family avoid television on Sunday.
After a week of unprecedented and hugely damaging revelations from Prince Harry’s memoirs Reserve — who accidentally went on sale early — began a series of much-hyped interviews with the Duke of Sussex ahead of the book’s official launch on Tuesday, with the prospect of more fuel being thrown at his now very public split with his family.
“I don’t know how silence will ever make things better,” Harry told Tom Bradby for Britain’s ITV, the first interview to be shown.
In the early moments of the 90-minute conversation in LA, Harry said his family was “absolutely unwilling to reconcile” and that he had spent the past six years trying to get through to them, through conversations, letters and emails. . “The saddest part is that it never had to be,” he said of this growing divorce, culminating in him deciding to speak publicly about his grievances.
Harry discussed the “sibling rivalry” with his brother, claiming that he had taken “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 bring me and William together… but I don’t think they ever expected me to get into a relationship with someone like Meghan, who had a very successful career.”
He said that much of his family read the press — even going so far as to accuse Queen Camilla of leaking private conversations to the newspapers — and that they “lived in reality rather than tabloids.” He added that his brother and sister-in-law took into consideration what was written about Markle and the stereotypes of her being an “American actress, divorcee, biracial.” He later said it quickly became “Meghan versus Kate”, with Middleton being 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 only doing this to make money. “We were committed 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 bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, claiming that it was the British press that explicitly stated this and that they were really just referring to “unconscious bias and not racism.
Despite all that has been said and done and the damning details in both the book and the interview, Harry said he was “100 percent” confident in reconciling with his family, but said it could only happen if the “main antagonist” was the gap – the British tabloid press had nothing to do with it.
“I hope that the reconciliation between us and my family will have a ripple effect around the world,” he added.
Speaking with Anderson Cooper for CBS’ 60 Minutes: Interview with Prince Harry – the first with the royal in the US left Reserve — Harry explained that he was now speaking publicly because “every time I tried to do it privately, there were briefings and leaks and stories planted against me and my wife.” In a clip released before the hour-long TV special aired, Harry claimed that journalists had previously been “spooned up with information” by Buckingham Palace, who would then refuse to issue a statement to protect him and Meghan Markle . “There comes a point where silence is treason.”
Harry also described what he felt when his mother, Princess Diana, died 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 had happened. “For a long time I just refused to accept that she was — she was gone,” Harry said. “Part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of, maybe this is all part of a plan.”
Harry tried to grieve and said he was dealing with alcohol, drugs and psychedelics. Years later, at age 20, he said he saw the police report and some photos of the crash to try to make sense of it all. Harry continued to hope that his mother was still alive until he visited Paris at 23 and had his driver go through the tunnel in which his mother died, saying, “I have to make this trip.” I have to drive 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 were considering reopening the case “because there were so many holes and holes in it. Which just wasn’t right and didn’t make sense.” They never went through with it.
In 2022, before Queen Elizabeth II died, Harry Cooper told that his family had not included him in any travel plans to visit her. Harry was in London for a charity event at the time 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 going up there?’ And then a few hours later, you know, all the relatives who live in the Windsor and Ascot area jumped on a plane together,” he told Cooper. “A plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats.” Harry said that he had not been invited and that the Queen had died by the time he arrived at Balmoral Castle.
A third interview — with Michael Strahan for that Good morning America — will air on January 9. In a teaser clip released by ABC News on Sunday evening, Strahan asked Harry if he ever sees himself returning to his role as a working royal.
‘I don’t think it will ever be possible,’ Harry replied. “I don’t think, you know, even if there was an agreement or arrangement between me and my family, there’s a third party that’s going to do everything they can to make sure that’s not possible. Not stopping us from going back, but making it unsurvivable.”
The TV appearances come after several days of highly personal claims and incidents of family discord were taken from early readings of Reserve. In addition to describing how he lost his virginity (reportedly in a field behind a pub to an “elderly lady” when he was 17), Harry also described several episodes of drug use, including allegedly trying magic mushrooms at a party in the home of Courtney Cox. In a passage that sparked much criticism, Harry said that as co-pilot of an Apache helicopter in Afghanistan, he killed 25 Taliban soldiers, a claim that military veterans say could increase his personal security risk.
The most incendiary revelation, which made headlines in the UK and around the world, involved the alleged fight with William in 2019, who he claims called Markle “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”, resulting in a scuffle that saw Harry “knocked to the ground,” where he landed “on top of the dog bowl, which burst under my back and bits of it cut into me.”
The details of Reserve come just weeks after Netflix’s Harry and Megan doc series, in which the Prince first took aim at the Royal Family with allegations that William’s team had been telling stories about the Sussexes to the British press to distract from the negative attention the Cambridges of the time were receiving.
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 the 60 minutes interview.
Updated 9:50 PM January 8: Added quotes from the GMA interview.
