Extract after extract from Prince Harry’s memoir Spare flooded the news cycle this week, after it was leaked in Spain five days before its official publication date.
These publications came to a head on Sunday (8 January), when the Duke of Sussex’s highly anticipated interview with ITV host Tom Bradby was aired.
The conversation, lasting almost two hours, included Harry narrating controversial and startling excerpts from the book which, according to one royal biographer, “could mark the beginning of the end” of the monarchy.
The memoir includes revelations about members of the royal family including Harry’s brother William, Prince of Wales, and his step-mother, Queen Consort Camilla.
It also contains anecdotes about the prince’s drug use, how he lost his virginity, and the birth of his son Archie.
During his conversation with the British broadcaster, Harry opened up about his decision to publish the “personal and moving” memoir, launched a scathing attack on the UK press, and clarified some recent headlines about Spare.
However, the interview failed to impress The Independent’s critic Nick Hilton, who branded the programme as “stage-managed and unchallenging from start to finish” in his review.
Here are the 10 biggest talking points from the duke’s sit-down with Bradby.
Feud with his brother William still a sore point
Much of Harry’s ire in the ITV interview was directed at his older brother, William. In excerpts from Spare, he accuses his brother of physically attacking him, and also claims that the Prince and Princess of Wales created tension with Meghan from the beginning.
“I had put a lot of hope in the idea that it’d be William and Kate and me and whoever,” he explained to Bradby.
“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.”
He continued by saying that William and Kate wouldn’t have expected him to get involved with “someone like Meghan” and suggested that his brother and sister-in-law’s behaviour towards her was affected by that.
“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 introducing or welcoming her in,” he said.
Pushed by Bradby to elaborate, he said: “Well, American actress, divorced, biracial, [there are] all different parts to that and what that can mean. But if you are, like a lot of my family do, 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.”
The Independent has contacted the Prince and Princess of Wales’s repesentatives for comment.
Harry brands Jeremy Clarkson’s Meghan op-ed “horrible, hurtful, and cruel”
Addressing Clarkson’s column in The Sun, which prompted a landslide of complaints before being taken down, Harry told Bradby: “What [Clarkson] said was horrific, and is hurtful and cruel towards my wife.
“But it also encourages other people around the UK and around the world, men particularly, to go and think that it’s acceptable to treat women that way,” the duke, 38, continued.
Prince Harry claims Camilla launched ‘campaign’ to marry his father
In an excerpt from his book, that was played during the interview, Harry claimed Queen Consort Camilla launched a “campaign” to marry his father, now King Charles.
Harry writes that while he and William “supported” their father’s relationship with Camilla and “endorsed” her, they asked him not to marry her.
“He didn’t answer. But she answered. Straight away. Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game,” Harry’s narration continues. “A campaign aimed marriage, and eventually the Crown, with Pa’s blessing we presumed.”
Harry responds to accusations of hypocrisy over memoir and Netflix documentary
When Bradby pressed his interviewee, asking him about the accusation he’s violating his family’s privacy “without permission” after fighting back against intrusions into his and Meghan’s personal lives, the duke responded: “That’ll be the accusation from the people that don’t understand or don’t want to believe that my family have been briefing the press.”
Prince Harry breaks silence on Lady Susan Hussey racism row
The duke addressed the recent controversy that broke out after Lady Susan Hussey asked a Black British charity worker where she “really came from”.
Harry told Bradby he was “very happy” for Sistah Space founder Ngozi Fulani to be invited to the palace for a reconciliatory meeting with Lady Hussey, “because [the Duchess of Sussex] Meghan and I love Susan Hussey”.
He continued: “And I also know that what she meant – she never meant any harm at all. But the response from the British press, and from people online because of the stories that they wrote was horrendous.”
Harry says members of royal family have ‘gone to bed with the devil’ to help press image
Prince Harry told Bradby that some members of the royal family had “gone to bed with the devil”, referring to the media, to rehabilitate their press image.
Harry said: “I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family. I will always do. Nothing of what I’ve done in this book or otherwise has ever been to any intention to harm them or hurt them.”
However, he continued: “After many, many years of lies being told about me and my family there comes a point where going back to the relationship between certain members of the family and the tabloid press, those certain members have decided to get in the bed with the devil, right?”
Prince Harry says there are ‘25 versions of bridesmaids story’ about Meghan and Kate
Harry, 38, claimed there were “25 versions” of the story where it was reported that Meghan Markle made his sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, cry.
It was widely reported that Meghan had made Kate Middleton cry over an argument over bridesmaids’s dresses around the time of her wedding to Harry.
However, in his memoir, Harry claims it was his wife who was left in tears and that Kate visited the following day to apologise.
Questioned on why the story was never corrected, Prince Harry said: “It’s a question for them. They were more than happy to put out statements for less volatile things.”
Harry recounts ‘horrible reaction from my family’ after queen died
Prince Harry reflected on the “horrible reaction” he alleges he recieved from the royal family when he was reunited with them after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The duke said that the day Britain’s longest-reigning monarch died “was just a really, really horrible reaction from my family members”.
“I was like ‘We’re here to celebrate the life of granny and to mourn her loss, can we come together as a family?’ but I don’t know how we collectively – how we change that,” he said.
Duke’s fears for his family’s safety
Harry claimed that one of the main reasons he left the UK with Meghan to start a new life in Los Angeles was due to concerns surrounding their personal safety.
Citing the death of his mother, Diana, Harry said he didn’t want to be “a single dad” like his father, implying he was concerned history would repeat itself if he and Meghan stayed in the UK where they would continue to be hounded by the media.
“I don’t want history to repeat itself. I do not want to be a single dad. And I certainly don’t want my children to have a life without a mother or a father,” he said.
Harry and Meghan stepped down as senior members of the royal family in March 2020, and relocated to Montecito, California in the United States.
He believes the royal rift can be healed
Despite his many claims about his tormented relationship with the Firm, Harry insisted that he “100 per cent” believes that the tensions in the family can be smoothed over.
However, he said that he wants to see “accountability” over the past as well as focusing on “looking forward.
“I’ve made peace with a lot of what’s happened, but I am still I guess patiently waiting for accountability.”
Harry: The Interview is streaming on ITVx.
