Forgiveness, racism and Camilla: Key points from Prince Harry's bombshell ITV interview
A person at home watching Harry being interviewed by ITV's Tom Bradby during Harry: The Interview. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire
Prince Harry spoke to ITV’s Tom Bradby on Sunday in the first of four primetime interviews about his controversial memoir Spare.
In his first primetime television interview promoting his controversial memoir, Harry said he loved his father, King Charles, and brother, Prince William, but said: “At the moment, I don’t recognise them, as much as they probably don’t recognise me.”
Here are five key points from the interview.
Harry said he and William asked their father not to marry the Queen Consort, Camilla Parker Bowles. However, he said they wanted their father to "be happy" and it was "his decision."
"The two of them were, and remain, very happy together."
During the interview, a clip from Harry's audiobook Spare was read out, where he recalls asking his father "Just please don’t marry her, just be together, Pa."
He also accuses her of "playing a long game" and leaking stories to the press that painted her in a favourable light.
"Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game. A campaign aimed at marriage, and eventually the Crown, with Pa's blessing we presumed."
Harry says "stories began to appear everywhere in all the papers" about private conversations with his brother William, "stories that contained pinpoint accurate details, none of which had come from Willie, of course."
"They could only have been leaked by the other one other person present."
After ITV’s Tom Bradby states that some of Harry's comments about Camilla have been "scathing", the prince pushes back saying none of his comments have been "scathing".
"There are things that have happened that have been incredibly hurtful, some in the past, some current."
Harry denied calling members of the royal family racist in his interview with Oprah Winfrey.
He said Meghan's claims that a family member made “troubling” comments about the skin colour of his son, Archie, related to “unconscious bias” not racism.
And the incident involving Ngozi Fulani and Lady Susan Hussey was "a very good example of the environment within the institution”.
Harry said he didn't accuse his family of racism, “the British press said that”, continuing "did Meghan ever mention that they’re racist?”
After Bradby said Meghan claimed troubling comments were made about Archie’s skin colour, Harry said: “There was – there was concern about his skin colour.”
Asked if he would describe that as racist, the duke said: “I wouldn’t, not having lived within that family.”
He said there was a "difference" between racism and unconscious bias.
“But once it’s been acknowledged, or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that in order so that you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
“Otherwise unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism.”
After saying he would never talk about which family members had made the comments, Harry continued: “I mean what happened to Ngozi Fulani is a very good example of the environment within the institution, and why after our Oprah interview, they said that they were going to bring in a diversity tsar.
“That hasn’t happened.
“Everything they said was going to happen hasn’t happened.
“I’ve always been open to wanting to help them understand their part in it, and especially when you are the monarchy – you have a responsibility, and quite rightly people hold you to a higher standard than others.
“So, the way that I’ve learnt it through my own experience and for what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, yes, you’re right the key word is concern, which was troubling.
"To say that that doesn’t happen around the rest of the world, but it just happened there – that’s not true.
“But again for me the difference is unconscious bias and racism, but if you are called out for unconscious bias you need to make that right, and you have the opportunity and the choice to.
“But if you choose not to, then that rapidly becomes something much more serious.”
During the course of the interview, ITV’s Tom Bradby said the impression was that his brother William and sister-in-law Kate did not get on “almost from the get-go” with Meghan, to which Harry replied: “Yeah, fair.”
When asked what the reason was, he said: “Lots of different reasons … I had put a lot of hope in the idea that it’d be William and Kate and me and whoever.
“I thought the four of us would bring me and William closer together, we could go out and do work together, which I did a lot as the third wheel to them, which was fun at times but also, I guess, slightly awkward at times as well.
“I don’t think they were ever expecting me to get … into a relationship with someone like Meghan who had a very successful career.”
Before meeting Harry, Meghan had starred in US legal drama series in which she played paralegal-turned-lawyer Rachel Zane.
Harry laughed when telling Bradby his brother and sister-in-law were Suits “fans”, adding: “Who would’ve thought? I never knew that.”
Speaking about his wife, Harry suggested there was a lot of “stereotyping” that even he was “guilty of” at the beginning.
He told Bradby: “The fact that I had that in the back of my mind, and 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 introducing or welcoming her in.”
When asked what exactly he meant by stereotyping, Harry elaborated: “American actress, divorced, biracial.”
He continued: “There are all different parts to that and what that can mean but if you are, like a lot of my family do, if you are reading the press, the British tabloids at the same time as living the life, then there is a tendency where you could actually end up living in the tabloid bubble rather than the actual reality.”
Harry said the idea of himself, his wife and the Prince and Princess of Wales being the “fab four” was “something the British press created” and it “creates competition”.
He told Bradby: “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.
“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 added that his brother William “raised some concerns” about his marriage to Meghan before their wedding in May 2018.
“Maybe he predicted what the British press’s reaction was going to be.”
Harry said it was “heartbreaking” but he “simply didn’t believe” his brother William when he said he wanted him to be happy at his grandfather's funeral.
Reading a passage from his book Spare, Harry said the phrase “on mummy’s life” at the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.
In his book Spare, Harry described the phrase as a “universal password” or a “secret code” between the pair, which he said they had used for 25 years “for when one of us needed to be heard”.
Harry also spoke about a falling out with his brother over his beard.
The Prince said he asked the late Queen for permission to keep his beard for his own wedding, which she allowed, but his brother was unhappy.
Asked what the disagreement was actually about, Harry said: “I think a lot of it is to do with – I mean I refer to it as heir/spare but also older brother/younger brother – there’s a level of competition there.
“And again, writing this, I remembered that William had a beard himself and that granny and other people, the ones to tell – told him that he had to shave it off.
“The difference for me, if there was a difference, but the difference for me was, as I explained to my grandmother, that this beard – that I’m still wearing – felt to me at the time like the new Harry, right. As almost like a shield to my anxiety.
“I think William found it hard that other people told him to shave it off, and yet here I was on my wedding day wearing military uniform [with a beard]."
Harry said he would like to forgive and reconcile with his family.
“I think there’s probably a lot of people who, after watching the documentary and reading the book, will go, how could you ever forgive your family for what they’ve done?
“People have already said that to me, and I said, forgiveness is 100% a possibility because I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back.
“But that is a symptom of one of the problems where we’re not just talking about family relationships, we’re talking about an antagonist, which is the British press, specifically the tabloids who want to create as much conflict as possible.
“The saddest part of that is certain members of my family and the people that work for them are complicit in that conflict.
“So, though I would like to have reconciliation, I would like accountability, I’ve managed to make peace over this time with a lot of things that have happened but that doesn’t mean that I’m just gonna let it go.
“You know, I’ve made peace with it, but I still would like reconciliation. And not only would that be wonderful for us, but it would be fantastic for them as well.”
- Harry: The Interview is available to view on ITVX.
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