Prince Harry doesn’t spare us the cold hard truth of life as a British royal.
The Duke of Sussex sat down for a candid interview with Anderson Cooper on ’60 Minutes’, which aired on CBS on Sunday. The interview gave a glimpse into the “unabashed honesty” of Harry’s forthcoming memoir “Spare”, which will be released on January 10 and details his life before and after he and his wife, Duchess Meghan, retired from their roles as senior members of the royal family.
During his chat with Cooper, Harry spoke about his relationships with members of the royal family, including his father’s wife, Queen Consort Camilla, as well as the grief of years at losing his mother, the Princess Diana, at the age of 12.
Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare”:Her relationship with Prince William, more to know before her release
Here are the biggest bombshells from Harry’s interview.
Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare”, “Hell Bent” by Leigh Bardugo: 5 new must-have books this week
Prince Harry never ‘intended to hurt’ his family with his memoir
Despite the candor of his forthcoming memoir, including his portrayal of his brother Prince William, Harry told Cooper that “Spare” was his way of setting the record straight on the tensions in his family life.
“Nothing I’ve written, nothing I’ve included was ever intended to hurt my family,” Harry said. “But it paints a complete picture of what happened while we were growing up, and also crushes this idea that my wife was somehow the one who destroyed the relationship between these two brothers.”
Responding to criticism of being very “public” since stepping down from royal duties, Harry claimed his attempts at confidentiality had been thwarted by the Royal Family’s correspondence with the media.
“Every time I’ve tried to do it privately there have been briefings, leaks and stories against me and my wife,” Harry said. “The family motto is ‘never complain, never explain,’ but that’s just a motto.”
He continued, “So now, trying to speak a language they maybe understand, I’m going to sit here and tell you the truth with the words that come out of my mouth, rather than using someone else, an anonymous source, to feed on lies or a story to a tabloid that literally radicalizes its readers and then potentially harms my family, my wife, my children.”
Prince Harry wants his family backbut says they have shown ‘no willingness to reconcile’
Prince Harry reflects on the ‘guilt’ he felt after Princess Diana’s death
Prince Harry also spoke about the emotional consequences of the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who died in a fatal car accident when Harry was 12 years old. Recalling meeting mourners outside Kensington Palace in London with Prince William, Harry said he remembered “the guilt I felt”.
“The fact that the people we met showed more emotion than we did, maybe more emotion than we even felt,” said Harry, adding that he felt like a “person intermediary” for people’s grief.
Princess Diana loved America and America loved her back: Revisiting this connection 25 years later
Prince Harry on using psychedelic drugs to cope with the trauma of Princess Diana’s death
The Duke of Sussex went into detail with Cooper about the process of healing from grieving the death of his mother. As well as going to therapy, Harry said he has also undergone experimental medicinal treatments, such as using the psychedelics Ayahuasca and psilocybin.
Ayahuasca is an herbal psychedelic created from “prolonged heating or boiling of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine with the leaves of the Psychotria viridis shrub,” according to the Alcohol and Drug Foundation. Psilocybin, commonly known as the magic mushroom, is “natural and taken for its hallucinogenic effects”.
“I would never recommend people do this recreationally,” Harry said. “But doing it with the right people, if you’re going through a tremendous amount of loss or grief or trauma, then those things have a way of working like medicine.”
Harry said that taking these drugs allowed him to clarify his own relationship with grief. “They erased 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,” said Harry.
Revelations in the first part of “Harry & Meghan”, including royal proposal, Harry’s Nazi costume
Prince Harry, William ‘didn’t think it was necessary’ for King Charles and Camilla to marry
Prince Harry has opened up about his relationship with Queen Consort Camilla, who married her father King Charles III in 2005.
Harry revealed that he and Prince William asked Charles not to marry Camilla. “We didn’t think it was necessary,” Harry said. “We thought it was going to do more harm than good and that if he was now with himself, that would surely be enough. Why go so far when it is not necessarily necessary?
He added: “We wanted him to be happy, and we saw how happy he was with her. So at the time, it was ‘Okay’.”
However, Harry said Camilla’s need to “rehabilitate her image” in the media came at a cost because of the “bonds she was forging within the British press”.
“If you are led to believe, as a family member, that being in the news, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase your chances of being accepted as a monarch by the British public, so that’s what you’re going to do,” said Harry.
‘Harry & Meghan’ bombs:Prince Harry recalls seeing Prince William ‘screaming’ on exit
