10 Stunning Secrets We Learned From Prince Harry's Bombshell Interviews About the Royal Feud
The Duke of Sussex doesn't hold back in his latest interviews promoting his new book "Spare."
Prince Harry's highly anticipated tell-all, Spare, finally hits bookshelves. However, you don't have to wait to learn about the biggest bombshells the Duke of Sussex is dropping within the pages of the book. On Sunday and Monday, multiple interviews with the 38-year-old aired, and he doesn't hold back when asked about the Royal Family's deepest, darkest secrets. What did Prince Harry say in his ITV, 60 Minutes, and Good Morning America interviews? Here are ten bizarre secrets we learned about the Royal Family and their infamous feud with Harry and Meghan.
In his interview with Anderson Cooper, Harry confessed that he turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the death of his mother. "I had a huge amount of frustration and blame towards the British press for their part in it," the Duke of Sussex told him. "It was obvious to us as kids the British press' 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 how… whatever I was thinking. And I would, you know, resort to drugs as well."
During his interview with ITV's Tom Bradby, Harry backstepped about accusations of racism within the Royal Family. "You talk about accountability. In the Oprah interview you accused members of your family of racism," Bradby said. "No I didn't," Harry responded. "The British press said that." According to Harry, the family is guilty of institutional bias.
In his interview with Good Morning America's Michael Strahan, Harry maintains that he is telling all for the sake of the royal children. "I'm speaking out because I worry about other Royal kids," he states, naming his own children, Archie and Lili, as well as the next generation. He also expressed worry about other "young kids" in the family, interpreted to be William's children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.
"There are some people, especially in the UK, who have been led to believe that because you are a member of the royal family, somehow everyone owns you or has a stake in you," he said. "And that's a message that has been purely pushed out by the British tabloids, and it creates real problems within that family and that relationship. Of course, there has to be some sort of relationship, but where it's got to now is incredibly unhealthy."
Harry said he hopes he can help future generations by speaking out. "I also worry about other young kids within that family if this continues. Because who's to say that someone else doesn't fill my shoes and that their partner, whether it's a husband or a wife or boyfriend or a girlfriend, doesn't get treated exactly the same as Meghan did?"
Harry makes a major allegation about his brother and sister-in-law "stereotyping" Meghan as a "divorced biracial American actress," saying that they never expected him to end up with "someone like Meghan who had a very successful career." He told Bradby: "There was a lot of stereotyping that was happening, that I was guilty of as well, at the beginning," he said.
"American actress, right, and that was playing out in the British press in the media at the time as well. Some of the things that my brother and sister-in-law – some of the way that they were acting or behaving – definitely felt to me as though, unfortunately, that stereotyping was causing a bit of a barrier to them really sort of, you know, introducing or welcoming her in."
While he was "one hundred percent" happy for his father and his stepmother on their wedding day, he didn't approve of the marriage. "William and I wanted our father to be happy and he seemed to be very, very happy with her. We asked him not to get married. He chose to. And that's his decision. But the two of them were and remain very happy together," he told Bradby.
Prince Harry told ITV on Sunday night that his brother had voiced concerns about him marrying the Duchess and claimed that Prince William and his wife had never got on with Meghan "from the get-go." "The idea of the four of us being together was always a hope for me. Before it was Meghan, whoever it was going to be, I always hoped that the four of us would get on," Harry said.
"But very quickly it became Meghan versus Kate. And that, when it plays out so publicly, you can't hide from that, right? Especially when within my family you have the newspapers laid out pretty much in every single palace and house that is around."
Harry also told Cooper that when he went to see a therapist for the first time seven years ago, he tried an alternative psychedelic treatment. "You write in the book about psychedelics. Ayahuasca, psilocybin, mushrooms. They were actually important to you," Cooper said.
"I would never recommend people to do this recreationally," Harry responded. "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." He added: "For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss."
In his interview with 60 Minutes, Harry described Camilla as "dangerous," citing her desperation to rehab her image after being portrayed as "the villain" in his parents' divorce. "She was the third person in their marriage," he said, echoing his mother's words. "She was the villain. She needed to rehabilitate her image," he continued.
"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 information. With a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen consort, there were going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that." He added: "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 gonna do."
During his 60 Minutes interview, Harry confirmed that he is not currently speaking with his brother and father. "Do you speak to William now? Do you text?" Cooper asked. "Uh, currently, no. But I look forward to us being able to find peace," he responded, adding that he had not spoken to his father "for quite a while."
Prince Harry also revealed that his family did not invite him on the plane to fly to Balmoral when his grandmother was on her deathbed. "I asked my brother, I said, 'What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there?' 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, a plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats," he said. "You were not invited on that plane?" asks Cooper. "I was not invited," Harry replied.