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The biggest revelations from Prince Harry’s sit-down interviews

The Duke of Sussex accuses Queen Camilla of leaking stories and speaks of the tensions between Prince William, Kate, and Meghan.

Harper's Bazaar India

Prince Harry sat down for several explosive interviews ahead of the release of his memoir, Spare, which finally went on sale on January 10.

On January 8 (this Sunday) the highly anticipated 90-minute talk with ITV and his tell-all with CBS's 60 Minutes finally aired. On Monday, his chat with Good Morning America also went live, and on Tuesday, his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired.

In the interviews, the Duke of Sussex spoke further about the tensions that arose between himself, Prince William, and Princess Kate when Duchess Meghan joined the family. He also accused stepmother Queen Camilla of having an agenda to better her image and addressed his hopes for his future relationships with the royals.

See below for the biggest revelations.

Meghan vs. Kate

Harry, who spent years attending royal engagements as a trio with brother William and his wife, Catherine, Princess of Wales, told ITV presenter Tom Bradby that when he married Meghan Markle, he hoped the four would form a great, easy new unit.

"I thought that the four of us would bring me and William closer together, we could go out and do work together," he says. "Before it was Meghan, whoever it was gonna be, I always hoped that the four of us would get on, but very quickly it became Meghan versus Kate."

Unconscious bias in the family

Harry says William and Kate acted in ways that made Meghan feel unwelcome. And while he insists his family is not racist, he says they do have "unconscious bias" and showed that when Meghan entered the family. When they saw her, Harry says they saw an "American actress, divorced, biracial."

The prince reiterates those claims in his talk with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, saying the royals saw his wife as an "American, an actress, divorced, Black, biracial with a Black mother."

But he insists during the chat that the British press was responsible for most of the racist attacks on Meghan.

"What Meghan had to go through was similar in some part to what Kate and what Camilla went through," the duke says. "But then you add in the race element, which was what the press—British press jumped on straight away."

He continues, "I went into this incredibly naive. I had no idea the British press were so bigoted. Hell, I was probably bigoted before…the relationship with Meghan."

The prince also told Stephen Colbert that at one point, he became "obsessed" with reading the bad press about wife Meghan in order to try to understand where the criticism was coming from.

Camilla planted stories

In his book, Harry admits he and William begged their father, King Charles III, not to marry Camilla, Queen Consort, after Princess Diana's death, and in his ITV interview, the Duke of Sussex accuses his stepmother of plotting with the U.K. media to improve her image in order to get into the royal family.

"She began to play the long game," Harry says, as per an audiobook reading of the memoir aired in the ITV interview. "A campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the crown, with Pa's blessing, we presumed."

Harry continued that before Charles and Camilla's wedding, positive stories about Camilla began to appear in all the British papers—most notably stories about her private conversations with William. Those stories, the prince says, contained "accurate details, none of which had come from Willie, of course. They could only have been leaked by the one other person present."

He added that Camilla is one of the senior royals who've chosen to get "in the bed with the devil" in order to "rehabilitate" their image.

The duke also brought up his stepmother in his 60 Minutes sit-down, saying, "She was the villain" and "the third person" in the marriage between Charles and Diana, which is why he and William thought Charles marrying Camilla would cause "more harm than good."

He used drugs to cope with his mother's death

The prince said he started drinking heavily and using drugs, including cocaine, in his early 20s. He also tried psychedelics as therapy to cope with his mother's death.

"War didn't begin in Afghanistan. It began in August 1997," Cooper said, repeating the thoughts of the duke, on 60 Minutes.

Cooper also brings up that in Spare, Harry mentions having done psychedelics, including ayahuasca, psilocybin, and mushrooms.

Harry replies, "I would never recommend people to do this recreationally. But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief, or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine."

"What did they show you?" Cooper asks, with the duke explaining that they helped him deal with his "misery."

"For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss," he says. "They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that…I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy."

The queen's reaction to his royal exit

Harry tells GMA's Michael Strahan, "My grandmother and I had a very good relationship," adding that she did not react negatively to his decision to step back as a senior royal in January 2020.

He says his and Meghan's exit "was never a surprise to anybody, least of all her," the queen.

"She knew what was going on, she knew how hard it was," he continues, speaking of his late grandmother. "She never said to me that she was angry. I think she was sad that it had got to that point."

He fact-checks The Crown

The prince admits to Colbert, "Yes, I have actually watched The Crown."

And when asked if he fact-checks it, the prince says, "Yes, I do, actually." He adds, "Which, by the way, is another reason why it's so important that history has it right."

He doesn't think he and William would be estranged if Princess Diana were alive

"If your mother were still alive, do you ever think about how she might handle this moment?" Colbert asks Harry during their talk, referring to his estrangement from the Prince of Wales.

"We wouldn't have got to this moment," Harry replied. "It's impossible to say where we would be now—where those relationships would be now—but there is no way that the distance between my brother and I would be the same."

He wants to reconcile with his family

"I love my father, I love my brother, and I love family," Harry says, adding that he doesn't know if he will attend his father's coronation, as "the ball is in their court" now.

"I don't think my father or brother will read the book…But what they have to say to me and what I have to say to them will be in private, and I hope it can stay that way," Harry said to ITV.

He also told 60 Minutes that the reason he is speaking out about his brother, father, and the rest of his family is to set the record straight, not to offend them or paint them as enemies. Though he hasn't spoken to William or King Charles in a while, he says he's looking forward to him and his brother "being able to find peace" in the near future.

"My brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years," Harry said.

He also stands by his wife, whom many have accused of pulling him away from his family and royal upbringing.

"None of anything I've written, anything that I've included is ever intended to hurt my family," the prince said. "But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers."

He's not going back to being a senior royal

Harry tells 60 Minutes that despite his willingness to reconcile with his royal family members, he doesn't see himself ever returning as a full-time senior member of the royal family.

He also told GMA, "I don't think it's ever going to be possible," but insists that if there is ever a way he and Meghan can "continue to support the Commonwealth, then that's, of course, on the table."

He adds that even if he decided to go back and his senior royal family members—King Charles and Prince William—agreed, the British press would make life impossible for him and Meghan.

"I don't think that—you know, even if there was an agreement or an arrangement between me and my family, there is that third party that is going to do everything they can to make sure that this isn't possible," he said. "Not stopping us from necessarily going back, but making it unsurvivable, and that's really sad, because that is essentially breaking the relationship between us."

Harry explained various times in his interviews and memoir how the media has had a great deal to do with the downfall of his relationship with his brother and father.

This piece originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar US

 

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