Prince Harry: The 60 Minutes Interview

Prince Harry may have stepped back from his Royal duties in 2020 but he and his wife Megan The Duchess of Sussex certainly haven't stepped away from the spotlight just last month they appeared in a six-part Netflix documentary about their relationship and their decision to leave their Royal lives behind but now the 38-year-old Prince Harry is telling his own story in a new Memoir coming out Tuesday called spare a nod to his backup role in the line of succession the book is a stunning break with royal protocol it's a deeply personal account to Prince Harry's decades-long struggle with grief after the death of his mother Princess Diana and a revealing look at his fractured relationships with his father King Charles his stepmother the queen consort Camilla and his brother Prince William the heir to his spare the story will continue in a moment you write about a contentious meeting you had with him in 2021 you said I looked at Willy really looked at him maybe for the first time since we were boys I took it all in his familiar scowl which had always been his default in dealings with me his alarming baldness more advanced than my own his famous resemblance to Mummy which was fading with time with age it's pretty cutting I don't see it as cutting at all um you know 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 um none of anything that I've written and anything I've included is ever intended to hurt my family 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 I think so many people around the world watched you and your brother grow up and feel like you two were inseparable and yet in reading the book you have lived separate lives from the time your mom died even when you're in the same school in high school sibling rivalry your brother told you pretend we don't know each other yeah and at the time it hurt I couldn't make sense of it I was like what do you mean we're now at the same school like I haven't seen you for ages now we get to hang out together he's like no no when we're at school we don't know each other and I took that personally but yes you're absolutely right you hit the nail on the head like we had a very similar traumatic experience and then we we dealt with it two very different ways William tried to talk to you occasionally about your mom but as a child you could not you couldn't respond for me it was never a case of I don't want to talk about it with you I just don't know how to talk about it I never ever thought that maybe talking about it with my brother or with anybody else at that point would be therapeutic in August 1997 Harry and William were vacationing in Scotland with their father Harry was 12 William 15. they were asleep at Balmoral Castle on August 31st when Harry was awakened by his father who told him his mother had been in a car crash in Paris in the book you write he says they tried darling boy I'm afraid she didn't make it these phrases remain in my mind like darts and a board you say did did you cry not never shed a single tear at that point I was in shock you know you're 12 years old sort of seven seven thirty in the morning early your father comes in sits on your bed puts his hand on your knee and tells you there's been an accident um I I couldn't believe and you write in the book that part didn't hug me he wasn't great at showing emotions under normal circumstances but his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said it's going to be okay but after that nothing was okay for a long time no nothing nothing was okay Harry says his memories of the next few days are fragmented but he does remember this greeting mourners outside Kensington Palace in London the day before his mother's funeral when you see those videos now what do you think I think it's bizarre because I see William and me smiling I remember the gills that I felt guilty about the fact that the people that we were meeting was showing more emotion than we were showing maybe more emotion than we even felt they were crying but you weren't there was a lot of tears and I talk about how wet people's hands were and I couldn't understand it at first their hands were wet the hands were wet from wiping their own tears away I do remember one of the strangest parts to it was taking flowers from people and then placing those flowers with the rest of them as if I was some sort of middle person for their grief and that really stood out for me the funeral on a cool September morning was watched by as many as two and a half billion people around the world perhaps the most indelible image Prince Harry and his brother walking behind their mother's casket on its way to Westminster Abbey what do you remember about that walk how quiet it was I remember the occasional whale and screaming of someone I remember the horse Hooves on the road the bridles of the horses the gun Carriage the wheels the occasional gravel Stone underneath your shoe but mainly the the silence after the service Princess Diana's body was brought for burial to her family's ancestral estate althorpe once my mother's coffin actually went into the ground that was the first time that I actually cried yeah there was never another time all through your teenagers you didn't cry about it no you didn't believe she was dead they were long for a long time I just refused to accept that she was she was gone um part of you know she would never do this to us but also part of maybe this is all part of a plan I mean you really believe that maybe she had just decided to disappear for a time for a time and then that she would call us and we would go and join her how long did you believe that yes many many years and William and I talked about it as well he had he had similar thoughts you wrote In the book you say I'd often say it to myself first thing in the morning maybe this is the day maybe this is the day that she's gonna reappear yeah hope I had huge amounts of Hope he held on to that hope into adulthood when Harry was 20 he asked to see the police report about the crash that killed his mother her boyfriend Dodie alfayed and their driver Henry Paul while they were being pursued by Paparazzi in a Paris tunnel the files contained photographs of the crash scene why did you want to see it mainly proof proof that she was in the call proof that she was injured and proof that the very Paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones that were taking photographers photographs of her lying half dead on the backseat of the car you're right I hadn't been aware before this moment talking about looking at the pictures of the crash scene that the last thing mummy saw on this Earth was a flash bulb yeah that's what you saw in the pictures well they were the pictures showed the reflection of a group of photographers taking photographs through the window and the reflection of the window was was that he only saw some of the crash photos his private secretary and advisor dissuaded him from looking at the rest all I saw was the back of my mom's head slumped on the back seat there were other more gruesome photographs but I will be eternally grateful to him for denying me the ability to inflict pain on myself by saying that because that's the kind of stuff that sticks in your mind forever Harry says he believed his mother might still be alive until he was 23 and visited Paris for the first time you told your driver I want to go to the tunnel where my mom died I wanted to see whether it was possible driving at the speed that Henry Paul was driving that you could lose control of a car and plow into a pillow killing almost everybody in that car I need to take this journey I need to ride the same route the same tunnel the same speed all of it your mother was going yeah because William and I'd already been told the event was like a bicycle chain if you remove one of those chains the end result would not have happened and the paparazzi chasing was part of that but yeah everybody got away with it Harry writes he and his brother weren't satisfied with the results of a 2006 investigation by London's Metropolitan Police concluding Diana's driver Henry Paul had been drinking and the Crash was a quote tragic accident William and I considered reopening the inquest because there were so many gaps and so many holes in it which just didn't add up and didn't make sense would you still like to do that I don't even know if it's an option now but no I think would I like to do that now because I have a question Anderson um do you feel you have the answers that you need to have about what happened to your mom truth be known no I don't think I do and I don't think my brother does either I don't think the world does um do I need any more than I already know no I don't think it would change much Harry now says it wasn't until he served in combat with the British army in Afghanistan that he finally found purpose and a sense of normalcy my military career saved me and many were God how so got me out of the spotlight from the from the UK press I was able to focus on a purpose larger than myself to be wearing the same uniform as everybody else to feel normal for the first time in my life and accomplish some of the biggest challenges that I ever had in Australia's become an Apache helicopter pilot you don't get a pass for being a prince you Patriot doesn't give a crap about who you are no there's no Prince autopilot buttons that you can press and just takes you away um I was a really good candidate for the military I was a young man in my 20s um suffering from shock but I was now in the front seat of an Apache shooting it flying it monitoring four radios simultaneously and being there to save and help anybody that was on the on the ground with a radio screaming we need support we need air support um that was my calling I felt healing from that weirdly in that multitasking the brain work of that that felt good to you it felt like I was turning pain into a purpose I didn't have the awareness at the time that I was living my life in Adrenaline and that was the case from age 12 from the moment that I was told that my mum and died you say War didn't begin in Afghanistan it began in August 1997. yeah the war for me unknowingly was when my mum died who are you fighting myself I had a huge amount of frustration and blame towards the British press for their part in it even at 12 I mean at that young you were feeling that toward the British price yeah I mean it was obvious to us as kids the British presses part in our mother's misery and I had a lot of anger inside of me that luckily I never expressed to anybody but I resorted to drinking heavily because I wanted to numb the feeling or I wanted to distract myself from whatever I was thinking and I would you know resort to drugs as well Harry admits he smoked pot and used cocaine and writes that in his late 20s he felt hopeless and lost there was this weight on my chest that I felt for so many years and I was never able to cry so I was constantly trying to find a way to cry but even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum and sometimes I watch videos online of your mum of my mum hoping to cry yep and you couldn't I couldn't he sought out help from a therapist for the first time seven years ago and reveals he's also tried more experimental treatments you write in the book about psychedelics Ayahuasca psilocybin mushrooms you know 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 lost grief or trauma then these things have a way of working as a medicine they showed you something what did they show you for me they cleared the winds the windscreen the windshield the misery of loss they cleared away this idea that I had in my head that that my mother that I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her when in fact what she wanted was for me to be happy Prince Harry says he's found that happiness with his wife in California but as you'll hear in a moment he's far from at peace with the Royal Family Prince Harry's Memoir spare is anything but spare in its unflattering portrayal of the royal family especially his stepmother Camilla now the queen consort she married then Prince Charles in 2005 though the two had been romantically involved on and off for decades when Princess Diana famously referred to Camilla as the third person in her marriage the British tabloids ran with it and Prince Harry has never forgotten the story will continue in a moment she was the villain she was the third person in the marriage she needed to rehabilitate Her Image you and your brother both directly asked your dad not to marry Camilla yes why we didn't think it was necessary we thought that it was going to cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person that surely that's enough why go that far when you don't necessarily need to we wanted him to be happy and we saw how happy he was with her so at the time it was okay you wrote that she started a campaign in the British press to pave the way for a marriage and you wrote I even wanted Camilla to be happy maybe she'd be less dangerous if she was happy how was she dangerous because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image that made her dangerous that made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press and there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information and with a family built on hierarchy and with her on the way to being Queen consort there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that Harry says over the years he was one of those bodies he accuses Camilla and even his father at times of using him or William to get better tabloid coverage for themselves Prince Harry writes Camilla quote sacrificed me on her personal PR altar if you are led to believe as a member of the family that being on the front page having positive headlines positive stories written about you is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as Monarch by the British public then that's what you're going to do in his book Harry writes that when he introduced Meghan Markle to his family in 2016 his father initially took a liking to her but William was skeptical disdainfully referring to Megan as an American actress though Harry doesn't specify who he says other members of the royal family were uneasy as well right from the beginning before they even had a chance to get to know her and the UK press jumped on that and here we are and what was that based on that mistrust the fact that she was American an actress divorced black biracial for the black mother those were just four of the typical stereotypes that is it becomes a Feeding Frenzy for the British press but all those things in the within the family who also were were sources of mistrust yes you know my family read the tabloids you know it's laid out uh at breakfast when everyone's comes together so whether you walk around saying you believe it or not it's still still leaving an imprint in your mind so if you have that judgment based on a stereotype right at the beginning it's very very hard to get over that and a large part of it for the family but also the British press and numerous other people was like he's changed she must be a witch he's changed um as opposed to yeah I did change and I'm really glad I changed because rather than getting drunk falling out of clubs taking drugs I had now found the love of my life and I now have the opportunity to start a family with her soon after their relationship became public Harry insisted on putting out a statement condemning some of the Tabloid coverage of Megan and what he called quote the racial undertones of comment pieces you write that your dad and your brother William were furious with you for doing that why they felt as though it made them look bad they felt as though they didn't have a chance or weren't able to do that for their Partners what Megan had to go through was similar in some part to what Kate and what committee went through very different circumstances but then you add in the race element which was what the Press British press jumped on straight away I went into this incredibly naive I had no idea the British press was so bigoted hell I was probably bigoted for the relationship with with Megan you'd think you were bigoted before the relationship with Megan I don't know put it this way I didn't see what I now see they were married in May 2018 in a ceremony that seemed to promise a more modern and inclusive royal family and given the titles Duke and Duchess of Sussex but behind the scenes according to Harry Williams mistrust of Megan only worsened did you ever try to meet with William and Kate to defuse the tension yep how did that meeting go um not particularly well in early 2019 Harry writes the rancor between William and him exploded at Harry's Cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace your arguments with your brother became physical um it was a buildup of frustration I think on his part it was at a time where he was being told certain things by people within his office and at the same time he was consuming a lot of the Tabloid press a lot of the stories and he had a few issues which were based not on reality and I was defending my wife and he was coming for my wife she wasn't there at the time but through the things that he was saying I was defending myself and we moved from one room into the kitchen and his frustrations were growing and growing and growing he was shouting at me I was shouting back at him it wasn't nice it wasn't pleasant at all and he snapped and he pushed me to the floor he knocked you over he knocked me over um I landed on the dog bowl you cut your back yeah I cut my back I didn't know about it at the time but um yeah he apologized afterwards it was a pretty mostly experience but he asked you not to tell anybody not to tell Megan yeah and I wouldn't have done I didn't until she until she saw on my back she goes what's that I was like uh what I actually didn't know what she was talking about I looked in the mirror I was like well because I'd never I hadn't seen it Megan has said constant criticism and pressure led her in the winter of 2019 to contemplate suicide the thing that's terrified me the most is history repeating itself you really feared that your wife Megan yes I fit I feared a lot that the end result the fact that I lost my mum when I was 12 years old could easily happen against my wife in January 2020 Prince Harry and Megan announced they intended to in their words step back as senior members of the royal family they moved to California three months later then there was the headline grabbing interview with Oprah Winfrey and a deal with Netflix worth a reported 100 million dollars critics say the Duke and Duchess are cashing in on their Royal titles while they still can why not renounce your titles as duke and duchess and what difference would that make one of the criticisms that you've received is that okay fine you want to move to California you want to step back from the institutional role why be so public why reveal conversations you've had with your father or with your brother you say you tried to do this privately and every single time I've tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife you know the family motto is never complained never explain but it's just a motto and it doesn't really hold there's a lot of complaining and a lot of explaining and private being done in through leaks through leaks Prince Harry continues to claim he would never leak against his family so now trying to speak a language that perhaps they understand I will sit here and speak truth to you with the words that come out of my mouth rather than using someone else an unnamed source to feed in lies or narrative to a tabloid media that literally radicalizes its readers to then potentially cause harm to my family my wife my kids last month the British tabloid the sun published a vicious column about Megan written by a TV host he said I hate her at night I'm unable to sleep as I lie there grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day where she is made to walk naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant shame and throw lumps of excrement at her did that surprise you did it surprise me no is it shocking yes I mean thank you for proving our point has there been any response from the palace no and that comes a point when silence is betrayal Harry has been back in the United Kingdom he was in London last September for a charity event when the palace announced his grandmother 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 keep getting up there um and then a couple of hours later you know all of the family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together playing with 12 14 maybe 16 seats you were not invited on that plane it was not invited by the time Harry got to Balmoral on his own the queen was dead I walked into the hall and my aunt was there to greet me and she asked me if I wanted to see her I thought about it for about five seconds thinking is this a good idea and I was like you know what you can you can do this You Need to Say Goodbye um so I went upstairs took my jacket off and walked in and just spent some time with her alone where was she was in her bedroom I was actually I was really happy for her because she'd finished life she completed life and her husband was was waiting for her and the two of them were buried together as they had 25 years earlier Harry and William found themselves walking together but apart this time behind their grandmother's casket do you speak to William now do you text uh currently no but I look forward to I look forward to us being able to find peace how long has it been since you spoke um oh well do you speak to your dad we all we haven't spoken for quite a while um no not recently can you see a day when you would return as a full-time member of the Royal Family no I can't see that happening in the book you called this a full-scale rupture can it be healed yes the board is very much in that call but you know Megan and I have continued to say that we all openly apologize for anything that we did wrong but every time we asked that question no one's telling us it's the specifics or anything there needs to be a constructive conversation one that can happen in private that doesn't get late I assume they would say well how can we trust you how do we know that you're not going to reveal whatever conversations we have in an interview somewhere this all started with them briefing daily against my wife with lies to the point of where my wife and I had to run away from our from my country it's hard I think for anybody to imagine a family Dynamic that is so Game of Thrones without dragons I don't watch Game of Thrones but there's definitely dragons and that's again the third party which is the British press so ultimately without the British press as part of this we would probably still be a fairly dysfunctional family like a lot are but at the heart of it there is a family without question um and I really look forward to having that family element back I look forward to having a relationship with my brother I look forward to having a relationship with my father and other members of my family you want that it's all I've ever asked for we reached out to Bucky and Palace for a comment its Representatives demanded that before considering responding 60 Minutes provide them with our report prior to airing it tonight which is something we never do Prince Harry on how being a father helps him understand his own mother I'm starting to comprehend the position that she was in at 60 minutes overtime.com

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 3,604,485

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Prince Harry, Spare, Royal Family, Princess Diana, Prince William, Queen Elizabeth, Camilla, meghan markle, royals, uk

Id: PCOojny1-fM

Length: 26min 59sec (1619 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 08 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/lms088]

When he says that none of this is meant to hurt anybody in his family… 🙄🙄🙄

Listen to yourself mate! You think they’re patting you on the back for all the digs, the passive aggressive remarks and the beans you’ve spilled? Good Lord.

[u/Branndish]

I was annoyed by the disrespectful way he spoke about Camilla. He demands respect for his own wife but literally publicly shredded his fathers wife.

Also, the whole “we told him he could be with her but just not marry her.” They loved each other and made each other happy, but we told him not to marry her. This angers me. I want to rant about it but it’s almost 4:00 am here and I have to call it a day.

[u/msfinch87]

This is a terrible interview. AC uses the technique Oprah was so successful with - empathize, validate and encourage someone to say more. This is great when talking to a subject who is genuine because they become comfortable and revealing. But a manipulative character like Harry needs a journalist who questions and challenges him. He spent the whole interview in his comfort zone, able to freely speak and elaborate whatever that hour’s perspective on the situation was.

[u/InterestingMud3019]

Too many positive comments from YouTube and Twitter 🤦‍♀️

[u/Effective-Escape9999]

He looks pretty angry at times (and wasted) in both interviews.

[u/Jackdarkshadows]

Please tell me there isn't a part 2, this was another softball interview, one sided and full of lies.

[u/That__EST]

Where can I find, or when will part 2 be aired?

[u/Extension_Success_96]

Ought to consider himself fortunate his family doesn’t want to embarrass everyone by demanding he take a DNA test.

Then he really would get his wish and be out of the royal family.

[u/Quiet-Vanilla-7117]

The video is unavailable. Does anyone have another link please?