AAfter an incredible excerpt from his upcoming autobiography Spare leaked last week, Prince Harry spoke to ITV in the UK and CBS in the US on Sunday night to explain why he wrote the book – and what it will take to reach reconciliation with him. family. Here are some of the main details.
Why did he write the book
Prince Harry framed the decision to write an autobiography as a last resort, prompted by the royal family’s failure to listen to his concerns, in particular over his alleged briefings on the tabloid press. And he suggested that it was a reclamation of his life story.
“38 years of my story being told by so many different people with deliberate twists and distortions – it felt like the right time to own my story,” he told ITV’s Tom Bradby. “I have … [been] doing everything I can personally to contact my family. And the saddest thing about this, Tom, is that it doesn’t have to be this way. There was no need to get to this point.”
He told Anderson Cooper of CBS that “nothing I write … is intended to hurt my family” but that the book had to stop “the notion that somehow my wife is the one destroying the relationship between these two brothers”.
He said on ITV that criticism of his decision to write for it was misplaced: “I’m not sure how honesty burns bridges. Silence only allows the abuser to abuse.
Diana’s death
The heartbreaking discussion of the trauma of his mother’s death, and its very long aftermath, begins with a passage from the book: his father sitting up in his bed, placing his hand on his knee, and calling him “dear boy” as he delivers the news. Harry told Bradby he had very little memory prior to that day: “I lost a lot of memories on the other side of this mental wall, which I think is perfect for so many people who have experienced loss… being able to drag memories back.
He told CBS he couldn’t believe Diana had been dead “for a long time”, and spoke of his continuing belief that the paparazzi’s role in causing the crash had not been fully acknowledged. “Everyone gets away with it,” he said.
His relationship with Charles and William
“I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family,” Harry told ITV. “I always do.” Nonetheless, his criticism of his handling of rifts in the family was harsh: “Going back to the relationship between certain family members and the tabloid press, those certain members have decided to sleep with the devil, to rehabilitate their image. ,” she says.
It’s hard not to relate that sentence to other accusations that, for example, there was a refusal to correct claims that Meghan had made Kate cry ahead of Meghan and Harry’s wedding when “they were happy to issue a statement for a non-volatile matter.” something”.
Harry also said on CBS that while the Queen was dying, he was not invited on a private flight bringing other family members to his bedside at Balmoral. By the time he arrived separately, he was already dead.
The beard is controversial
The strangest feature of the ITV interview is the in-depth discussion of the politics surrounding his desire to keep his beard for his wedding to Meghan (on) – shows evidence of the monarch’s obsessive desire to control even the smallest details of his life, or his disproportionate grudge over the most trivial of matters, depending on your sympathies.
He won in the end. “Writing this, I remembered that William himself had a beard, and a grandmother [the Queen] and others telling him you should shave him,” he said. The difference in his case, he said, was that his beard represented “the new Harry – almost like a shield for my anxieties … and I think William found it difficult.” He added: “Hopefully the bearded people out there will go away, well no I completely understand.”
Therapy
The effect of the therapy on Harry’s thinking appeared again and again. Reflecting on his claims of being physically assaulted by his brother, he told ITV: “I can guarantee today that if I don’t have therapy sessions… I will fight back 100%. But I didn’t, because I was in a more comfortable place with my own anger.”
In another clear reference to the value of a process he started seven years ago, he said: “I’ve put a lot of work and effort into working through my own trauma from so many years ago, and I will continue to work on it. . And I think other people in my family can do it too with that support.” He said on CBS that the use of psychedelic therapy has helped “clear the windshield … the woes of loss”.
He told Bradby, “I’m so happy, I’m so peaceful. I’m in a better place than I was before… I’m in a great headspace now.
Press and royal briefings
Harry cast his ongoing legal battle with the press over his alleged phone hacking and other invasions of privacy as a patriotic crusade. “If I cannot continue to serve my country while in England…then I will continue to serve my country from abroad,” he said. “Change media… [that’s how] I will try to make a difference.”
He repeatedly returns to the idea that his family and the press have a toxic, and symbiotic relationship. “My family has been trying to control it for years, and they are still trying to control it… But it is something they don’t want to change because it benefits them.” He told ITV: “What people are starting to understand now is that the royal source is not some unknown person. It was the palace that specifically briefed the press, but covered their tracks by not being named.
On CBS, Harry spoke of Buckingham Palace’s failure to condemn Jeremy Clarkson’s column in The Sun about Meghan, in which Clarkson said he “dreams of the day she was told to parade naked through the streets of every city in England”: “There was a point where silence is treason,” he said.
reconciliation
Despite the many seditious revelations and accusations in his book, Harry insists that his ultimate goal is reconciliation with his family. “I want reconciliation,” he told Bradby. “But first, there needs to be accountability.” Later, he told CBS, he “tried to speak a language they might understand.”
He said on ITV that he “100%” believed reconciliation was still possible, but “they felt as though it was better to keep us as criminals”. Such an outcome can have a tremendous impact, he said: “I truly believe, and I hope, the reconciliation between my family and ours will have ripple effects around the world.”
