Convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has said a decades-old photograph of Prince Andrew with his sexual abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre is “fake,” in a series of interviews from prison.
The disgraced British socialite is currently serving a 20-year sentence in US federal prison for carrying out a years-long scheme with her longtime confidante Jeffrey Epstein to groom and sexually abuse underage girls.
Speaking from a Florida jail to UK broadcaster TalkTV, which aired a special program on Monday night, the 61-year-old – who also appears in the photograph – said she doesn’t “believe it happened.”
“I don’t believe it is real for a second, in fact, I’m sure it’s not. There has never been an original. I don’t believe it happened and certainly, the way it’s described would have been impossible. I don’t have any memory of going to Tramp [nightclub],” Maxwell said.
Prince Andrew, who is one of King Charles III’s younger brothers, has strenuously denied Giuffre’s allegation that he was introduced to her at London’s Tramp nightclub in 2001 with Maxwell, before then-17-year-old Giuffre was allegedly forced to perform sex acts with the British royal.
Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit in a US court in 2021 against Andrew, who is also known as the Duke of York, alleging sexual abuses while she was a minor on multiple occasions. Andrew later settled out of court for an undisclosed figure without admitting any wrongdoing and the case was dismissed. Still, the allegations against the senior royal severely tarnished his reputation. He stepped back from royal duties in late 2019 and was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages last year.
Maxwell appeared to show little remorse to Epstein’svictims and offered no apology in the interviews broadcast Monday. Instead, she said the victims should “take their disappointment and upset out on the authorities who allowed” the billionaire pedophile to die in prison.
Maxwell also told TalkTV that she believes Epstein was murdered – a conspiracy theory for which she offered no evidence. Authorities ruled Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing underage girls.
Regarding the victims, Maxwell said, “I hope they have some closure via the judicial process that took place.”
Maxwell acknowledged during her sentencing hearing last year that she had been convicted in the sex trafficking scheme but stopped short of taking responsibility. She did not testify in her defense during the trial in late 2021, which ended with her conviction on five counts, including sex trafficking of a minor.
Buckingham Palace on Saturday revealed details of King Charles III’s coronation, set to be less extravagant than his mother’s ceremony 70 years ago, in a reflection of the cost-of-living crisis many Britons are enduring.
Three days of celebrations will take place, with the coronation on Saturday May 6, a “Coronation Big Lunch” and “Coronation Concert” the following day, and an extra bank holiday on Monday. The public will be invited on the last day to join “The Big Help Out” by volunteering in their communities.
The coronation itself will be “a solemn religious service, as well as an occasion for celebration and pageantry,” conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the palace said.
It will, the palace reiterated, “reflect the Monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry.”
That line from the palace has been interpreted by experts as a hint that Charles’ coronation will be different and more subdued from the one his late mother experienced seven decades ago, with a shorter ceremony and amendments to some of the feudal elements of the ritual. Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was the first live televised royal event and lasted three hours.
Charles and his wife Camilla, the Queen Consort, will arrive at Westminster Abbey in procession from Buckingham Palace, known as “The King’s Procession,” and return later in a larger ceremonial procession, known as “The Coronation Procession,” accompanied by other members of the royal family.
The King and Queen Consort, alongside members of the royal family, will then appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to conclude the day’s events.
At this point, the palace has not specified which members of the family will appear in the procession and on the balcony, following Prince Andrew’s continued exile from public life as a result of historical sexual abuse allegations and the publication of Prince Harry’s memoir which railed against his family.
“It would help Charles a lot in terms of his image if Harry and Meghan were there,” royal historian Kate Williams previously told CNN. “It’s particularly going to look bad for him if his son is not there because, of course, Harry still is very high in line to the throne, as are his children.”
On the following day, May 7, thousands of events are expected to take place across the country as part of the “Coronation Big Lunch,” while as-yet unnamed “global music icons and contemporary stars,” will come together for a “Coronation Concert” held on Windsor Castle’s East Lawn, the palace said.
The concert will be attended by a public audience composed of volunteers from the King and Queen Consort’s charity affiliations as well as several thousand members of the public selected through a national ballot held by the BBC.
They will watch a “world-class orchestra play interpretations of musical favorites fronted by some of the world’s biggest entertainers, alongside performers from the world of dance…and a selection of spoken word sequences delivered by stars of stage and screen,” the palace said, adding that a line-up would be released in due course.
A diverse group comprised of Britain’s Refugee choirs, NHS choirs, LGBTQ+ singing groups and deaf signing choirs, will form “The Coronation Choir” and also perform at the concert, alongside “The Virtual Choir,” made up of singers from across the Commonwealth.
Well-known locations across the country will also be lit up using projections, lasers, drone displays and illuminations as part of the concert.
The celebrations will conclude on the bank holiday Monday with “The Big Help Out” that will aim to “bring communities together and create a lasting volunteering legacy from the Coronation Weekend.”
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As read by Tim Teeman, Tom Sykes, Katie Baker, Kevin Fallon, Helen Holmes, Matt Young, Kate Briquelet, Brooke Leigh Howard, Rachel Olding, Danika Fears, Malcolm Jones, Madeline Roth.
Prince Harry opens his memoir, Spare, with a quote from Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even passed.” However he admits, just a few pages in, that he discovered it “on brainyquote.com.” What follows is a rollercoaster ride of revelations and relentless royal dish.
As well as all that has been divulged in countless articles and leaks already, Harry begins by revealing King Charles in an unfamiliar pose—in boxer shorts at Balmoral, doing headstands.
Harry reveals that he and brother Prince William always bowed to a statue of Queen Victoria on the second floor at Balmoral, having been “told to do so.” A risk of entering a “wrong door” at the Scottish castle was finding his father, “doing his head stands. Prescribed by his physio, these exercises were the only effective remedy for the constant pain in Pa’s neck and back. Old polo injuries, mostly. He performed them daily, in just a pair of boxers, propped against the door, hanging from a bar like a skilled acrobat.”
In an early recognition of his status, Harry says that at Balmoral he and William shared a room, saying William “had the larger half, with a double bed, a good size basin, a cabinet with mirrored doors, a beautiful window looking down on the courtyard, the fountain, the bronze statue of a roe deer buck. My half of the room was far smaller. Less luxurious. I never asked why. I didn’t care. But I also didn’t need to ask. Two years older than me, Willie was the Heir, whereas I was the Spare.”
And so the book begins as it means to go on: a blunt indictment of what Harry sees as his inherently lower position within the royal family that has impacted every part of his life.
He says that on the day of his birth his father told his mother: “Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and a Spare—my work is done.” Harry says the comment was “presumably” a joke but adds that, “minutes after delivering this bit of high comedy,” his father went off to meet “his girlfriend. So. Many a true word spoken in jest.”
“Emotion. Drama. Pain.”
Harry describes drifting off to sleep on the evening of August 30, 1997, before waking to find his father at the end of his bed, who tells him, “Darling boy, mummy has been in a car crash.” Harry writes, “I remember thinking: crash… Okay. But she’s alright? Yes?”
However his father then says, “There were complications. Mummy was quite badly injured and taken to hospital, darling boy.”
Harry says, “He always called me darling boy but he was saying it quite a lot now. His voice was soft. He was in shock, it seemed.”
Charles finally broke the news of Diana’s death to Harry by saying, “They tried, darling boy. I’m afraid she didn’t make it.”
Harry describes the morning of his mother’s death, saying that the family went to church as usual for a Sunday, but that he can remember very little about it.
After attending a private service at Crathie Church, Royal family stop to look at floral tributes left for Princess Diana, at the gates of Balmoral Castle. They are: Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince Harry, Peter Phillips.
Robert Patterson/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
He says that on the way home, “It was suggested that we stop. People had been gathering all morning outside the front gates, some had begun leaving things. Stuffed animals, flowers, cards. Acknowledgement should be made.”
He says that as he began to hear the “rhythmic clicking” of photographers he reached for his father’s hand, “for comfort,” then “cursed” himself “because that gesture just set off an explosion of clicks. I’ve given them exactly what they wanted. Emotion. Drama. Pain. They fired and fired and fired.”
His hatred of the media is the primary theme of the book, alongside the dysfunction of his own family, and his fractured relations with his father and brother.
As already reported by The Daily Beast, Harry writes about thinking Diana had staged her own death, and—truly alive—she would later be reunited with her two sons.
In a grim detail he says that his aunt Sarah McCorquodale handed him and William “two tiny blue boxes“ which contained Diana’s hair. He writes, “Aunt Sarah explained that, while in Paris, she’d clipped two locks from Mummy’s head. So there it was. Proof. She’s really gone.”
“I wasn’t Camilla’s biggest hurdle”
The seeds of royal rebellion were sown early. Harry’s history teacher at Ludgrove, named Mr. Hughes-Games, admonished Harry for not knowing anything about his family history; Harry also says he didn’t care to know anything about his ancestors.
Harry says Charles never spoke to him about James Hewitt, contrary to many profiles and biographies which say they had a heart-to-heart about the rumor that Hewitt was Harry’s father, which is patently false, Harry says.
Before they were officially introduced to their father’s mistress after Diana went “missing,” Harry says William once bumped into Camilla in the Palace. Harry says during his first formal introduction to Camilla, they were both “calm or bored.” “Neither of us much fretted about the other’s opinion. She wasn’t my mother, and I wasn’t her biggest hurdle. In other words, I wasn’t the Heir.”
In subsequent interviews this week, Harry has called Camilla both a “dangerous” schemer willing to leave “bodies in the street” to secure her royal position, while saying he has “compassion” for her.
Harry reveals Charles has a ratty old teddy bear called Teddy, and that William ignored him as a kid. On a hunting trip to Africa, a guide shoves Harry’s head into the carcass of a dead animal as part of a “blooding ritual.” Aclose encounter with a leopard in Botswana that passes near to the camp and Harry takes it as a sign from Diana that: “All is well. And all will be well.”
“Rehabber Kooks—infected pustule on the arse of humanity”
Harry talks about Club H, a place he could drink and let his hair down at his dad’s country pile, Highgrove, and of losing his virginity, as has been widely reported.
“Inglorious episode, with an older woman. She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me not unlike a young stallion. Quick ride, after which she’d smacked my rump and sent me off to graze. Among the many things about it that were wrong: It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub.”
He reserves particular scorn for one journalist who seems to be dead-set on pursuing him at all costs—anagram “Rehabber Kooks,” who seems very likely to be Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the News of the World and the Sun and now CEO of News UK (and tipped to take over the entire Murdoch empire)—as“an infected pustule on the arse of humanity, plus a shit excuse for a journalist.”
Charles and Camilla’s spin doctor decided to collude with Brooks, Harry writes, and throw the teenage Harry under the tabloid bus in order to “bolster the sagging reputation of Pa… No more the unfaithful husband, Pa would now be presented to the world as the harried single dad coping with a drug-addled child.”
The tabloid, Harry says, invented a story that he’d gone to rehab. He was furious when the story landed: “I felt heartbroken at the idea that this had been partly the work of my own family, my own father and future stepmother. They’d abetted this nonsense. For what? To make their own lives a bit easier.”
Diana, Princess Of Wales, holds Prince Harry, Prince William below, and Princess Margaret, left, on Buckingham Palace balcony.
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images
Harry also talks about the late Princess Margaret, another Spare as any Crown fan will remember, watching the powers-that-be separate her and her sister, Queen Elizabeth, early in their lives.
Harry finds “Margo” cold and intimidating with a scowl that could kill any house plant. One Christmas she gave him a biro as a gift. “It wasn’t just any biro, she pointed out. It had a tiny rubber fish wrapped around it… I told myself: That is cold-blooded.”
“Now and then, as I grew older, it struck me that Aunt Margo and I should’ve been friends,” Harry writes. “We had so much in common. Two Spares. Her relationship with Granny wasn’t an exact analogue of mine with Willy, but pretty close. The simmering rivalry, the intense competition (driven largely by the older sibling), it all looked familiar.”
“Cocaine didn’t make me particularly happy”
Harry writes about taking cocaine, and denying to a courtier that he had done so, despite press reports saying he had. “It wasn’t much fun, and it didn’t make me particularly happy as it seemed to make everyone around me, but it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal. Different. I was a deeply unhappy 17-year-old boy willing to try almost anything that would alter the status quo. That was what I told myself anyway. Back then, I could lie to myself as effortlessly as I’d lied to that courtier.”
Harry outlines his struggle to find purpose; he was not academic (saying the press cast him as “Prince Thicko”), and by “process of elimination” decided on the army as a career. He worked on a farm in Australia until the tabloids discovered him there, and then—on returning home—slept with a “page-three girl” (the famed topless models of the Sun) which led to more “nauseating,” snobbish press coverage.
His girlfriend Chelsy Davy “seemed immune to that common affliction sometimes called throne syndrome. It was similar to the effect that actors and musicians have on people, except with actors and musicians, the root cause is talent. I had no talent‚ so I’d been told, again and again—and thus all reactions to me had nothing to do with me.They were down to my family, my title, and consequently, they always embarrassed me, because they were so unearned. I’d always wanted to know what it might be like to meet a woman and not have her eyes widen at the mention of my title, but instead to widen them myself, using my mind, my heart. With Chelsy that seemed a real possibility…she was remarkably incurious.”
“Camilla sacrificed me on her personal PR altar”
Harry writes that he welcomed Charles and Camilla’s announcement they would marry, even if the ceremony was delayed. “Other than feeling sorry for them, I couldn’t help but think that some force in the universe (Mummy?) was blocking rather than blessing their union. Maybe the universe delays what it disapproves of?”
Still, “when the wedding did finally take place—without Granny, who chose not to attend—it was almost cathartic for everyone, even me…I did sneak several long peeks at the groom and the bride and each time I thought: Good for you. Though, also: Goodbye. I knew without question that this marriage would take Pa away from us…I didn’t relish losing a second parent, and I had complex feelings about gaining a step-parent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar. But I saw Pa’s smile and it was hard to argue with that, and harder still to deny the cause: Camilla. I wanted so many things, but I was surprised to discover at their wedding that one of the things I wanted most, still, was for my father to be happy. In a funny way I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy?”
“Please, put me on a battlefield where there are clear rules of engagement. Where there’s some sense of honor.”
— Prince Harry
Harry goes on to write about things already leaked and reported—his Nazi costume, allegedly greenlit and encouraged by William and Kate, and seeing photographs of his dead mother taken—as well as his army career, and ongoing paranoia he and William had about who was leaking stories about them to the press. Harry said he would rather be in a warzone than in Fleet Street’s sights. “What a relief it will be, I thought, to be in a proper war zone, where none of this is part of my daily calculus. Please, put me on a battlefield where there are clear rules of engagement. Where there’s some sense of honor.”
Prince Harry (R) speaks with RAF personnel during his visit to RAF Honington on July 14, 2010 in Suffolk, easten England.
Ben Stansall – WPA Pool/Getty Images
As it was, fighting in Iraq, Harry writes about himself becoming a target for insurgents to kidnap, torture, or kill. Upon returning to Britain, his partying became extreme, and the ever-present paparazzi he compared to Iraqi insurgents. “The paps had always been grotesque people, but as I reached maturity they were worse. You could see it in their eyes, their body language. They were more emboldened, more radicalized, just as young men in Iraq had been radicalized. Their mullahs were editors…”
As has been reported, William and Harry went to where their mother died in Paris.
Harry writes about finding purpose in Africa, of meeting people in real need “humbling” him, and of his frostbitten penis, as a result of Arctic travels just before Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton. The Sussex todger is still icy and painful during the ceremony. Harry is also massively hungover and freaked out being back at Westminster Abbey where his mother’s funeral service was. He can’t look at any of his nearest and dearest in case he bursts into tears.
Harry: I was Chandler in ‘Friends’
Late summer of 2013, Harry was having “terrifying panic attacks” and lethargy. Putting on a suit in the morning would trigger the panic attacks. He began to fear “all public venues” and started staying at home. He watched a lot of Friends and decided he was “a Chandler.”
He loved the show. Describing his bachelor lifestyle, he writes he did his own laundry,and folded his underwear while watching the show. For his everyday clothes he went to T.K. Maxx, liked Gap and J Crew.
He writes that he stopped going out in 2015, but still watched Friends, then would smoke a joint and go to bed early. “Solitary life. Strange life. I felt lonely, but lonely was panicky. … I was an agoraphobe.”
One therapist said he was suffering from post-traumatic stress, and that rang a bell. He also started meditating and taking psychedelics. “I’d experimented with them over the years, for fun, but now I’d begun to use them therapeutically, medicinally.”
NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images
In 2016 he went back to America and ended up staying at Courteney Cox’s house, who was a friend of a friend. Was thrilled “as a Friends fanatic.” But, “She was Monica. And I was a Chandler. I wondered if I’d ever work up the courage to tell her. Was there enough tequila in California to get me that brave?”
During a party at Cox’s, he met an actor from Batman (but doesn’t say who). At that party, he took mushrooms and washed them down with tequila. This is the bathroom shrooms story where the toilet became a head. The next day, there was another party with more tequila and more mushrooms. He ended the night by staring at the moon, which was speaking to him and telling him that “the year ahead would be good” and that there would be “something special” and “big.”
Maybe even someone who would be there for him, when the rain starts to pour.
“The King lived here, you say? Really?”
The book is intriguing as a kind of inside report on incidents that became such well-known tabloid fodder. Harry writes about the infamous time in Las Vegas where he was photographed nude after a wild night out. His “sense of guilt and shame made it hard at moments to draw a clean breath.” He fled to Balmoral, where his dad was “gentle” and “bemused” about it. Harry was relieved his bodyguards weren’t fired over it.
Deployed in Afghanistan, after he kills motorbike-riding Taliban soldiers, a friend asks, “Did it factor into your feeling that these killers were on motorbikes? The chosen vehicle of paps all over the world.” He “couldn’t say” that “not one particle” of him was thinking about the bikes that chased him, and “one Mercedes into a Paris tunnel.”
As has been reported, Harry killed 25 people while deployed. “It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed.” “They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bads taken away before they could kill Goods.” His questions about the war were never moral and the only shots he thought twice about were the ones he “hadn’t taken.”
Harry credits ex Cressida Bonas with performing “a miracle, opening me up, releasing suppressed emotions” during their relationship.
“Damn, I thought. She helped me cry. And now I’m leaving her in tears.”
— Prince Harry
One night she asked about his mother. “Her tone was just the right blend of curiosity and compassion.” Harry started crying and told her, “This is the first time I’ve been able to cry about my mum since the burial… She was the first person to help me across that barrier, to help me unleash the tears. It was cathartic, it accelerated our bond, and added an element rare in past relationships: immense gratitude. I was indebted to Cress, and that was the reason why, when we got home from Kazakhstan, I felt so miserable, because at some point during that ski trip I’d realized that we weren’t a match.” He drove over to see Cress and broke up with her. “Damn, I thought. She helped me cry. And now I’m leaving her in tears.”
On a trip to America for his friend Guy Pelly’s wedding. Harry toured Graceland and was super-unimpressed. “Dark, claustrophobic. I walked around saying: The King lived here, you say? Really?”
The wedding made him think, “When’s it going to be my turn? The one person who might want it most, to be married, to have a family, and it’s never going to happen. More than a little petulantly, I thought: It’s just not fair of the universe.”
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge attend a Christmas Party for families and children of deployed personnel from RAF Coningsby and RAF Marham serving in Cyprus, at Kensington Palace on December 4, 2018 in London, England.
Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images
Having left the army to be a full-time royal, Harry read the stories of William being lazy “which was obscene, grossly unfair, because he was busy having children and raising a family.”
“He did as much as Pa wanted him to do, and sometimes that wasn’t much, because Pa and Camilla didn’t want Willy and Kate getting loads of publicity. Pa and Camilla didn’t like Willy and Kate drawing attention away from them or their causes. They’d openly scolded Willy about it many times. Willy told me that both he and Kate felt trapped, and unfairly persecuted, by the press and by Pa and Camilla.”
Kate and William were big fans of “Suits”
Harry says he and Meghan began messaging each other on July 1, 2016—what would have been his mom’s 55th birthday. In their meet, which Harry writes about suitably cutely, he talks about traveling to Africa together, a freaky moment where his phone is bust and he is not able to contact her, and Will and Kate’s shock when Harry reveals he is dating Meghan.
They “explained that they were regular—nay, religious—viewers of Suits. They barraged me with questions…overall what I told them was heavily redacted. I just didn’t want to give away too much. I also said I couldn’t wait for them to meet her, that I looked forward to the four of us spending lots of time together, and I confessed, for the umpteenth time, that this had long been my dream—to join them with an equal partner. To become a foursome. I’d said this to Willy so many times and he’d always reply: ‘It might not happen, Harold! And you’ve got to be OK with that.’ Now I felt that it was going to happen, and I told him so—but he still said to slow down. ‘She’s an American actress after all, Harold. Anything might happen.’ I nodded, a bit hurt. Then hugged him and Kate and left.”
SUITS — Season 1 — Pictured: (l-r) Gina Torres as Jessica Pearson, Rick Hoffmann as Louis Litt, Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane, Gabriel Macht as Harvey Specter, Patrick Adams as Mike Ross.
Frank Ockenfels/USA/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
Meghan meets Queen Elizabeth very early, does a flawless curtsey, declines to discuss Donald Trump, and scores major points when she says she’s been working in Canada— part of the Commonwealth. Meghan also meets William, hugs him, freaks him out. Both William and Charles are furious when Harry issues a statement decrying racism, sexism and harassment in the initial media coverage and online comment around Meghan. “Pa and Willy were furious. They gave me an earful. My statement made them look bad, they both said. Because they’d never put out a statement for their girlfriends or wives when they were being harassed.”
Harry reveals he warned Meghan before she took a trip to India for World Vision that she shouldn’t take a photo in front of the Taj Mahal. “I’d explained that my mother had posed for a photo there, and it had become iconic, and I didn’t want anyone thinking Meg was trying to mimic my mother. Meg had never heard of this photo, and found the whole thing baffling.”
Kate: “I know, Meghan, that I was the one that made you cry”
In the run-up to the wedding, Kate and Meghan fell out over what has become an endless saga of who said what about bridesmaid dresses.
Post-wedding, Harry conveys an image of them being hunted by the media, and frozen out by the family, although Meghan tells him of her first joint engagement with the queen: “We bonded! The queen and I really bonded! We talked about how much I wanted to be a mum and she told me the best way to induce labour was a good bumpy car ride! I told her I’d remember that when the time came.”
There are excruciating meetings where Harry and Meghan and Kate and William try to get their relationship back on track. William and Kate are upset that they did not receive Easter presents from Harry and Meghan.
Harry perceptively notes: “None of this airing of grievances was doing us any good, I felt. We weren’t getting anywhere.”
“Had it actually come to this? Shouting at each other about place cards and hormones?”
— Prince Harry
Kate tells Meghan she owes her an apology over Meghan saying she may have “baby brain”: “You hurt my feelings Meghan… I told you I couldn’t remember something and you told me it was my hormones… We’re not close enough for you to talk about my hormones.”
As has been reported William told Meghan she was being “rude,” and Meghan told him not to point at her.
“Was this really happening?” Harry writes. “Had it actually come to this? Shouting at each other about place cards and hormones?”
Harry does not address the bullying allegations against Meghan directly, but says, “Team Cambridge versus Team Sussex took shape,” with “rivalry, and competing agendas poisoning the atmosphere… Nerves were shattering, people were sniping… more than once a staff member slumped across their desk and wept.”
l to r: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex arrive to attend Christmas Day Church service at Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham estate on December 25, 2018 in King’s Lynn, England.
Stephen Pond/Getty Images
When the story breaks that Meghan made Kate cry over the bridesmaid dresses, Meghan says to her husband, “Haz, I made her cry? I made HER cry?” In December 2018, at another “summit” between the couples, Kate allegedly says to Meghan: “I know, Meghan, that I was the one that made you cry.”
Meghan asked what was being done to correct the story in public.
Harry writes that he realized that nothing would be done: nothing could “happen to embarrass the future queen.” William confesses that he told Charles and Camilla about the beef between the couples, and although it is not stated the unspoken source of the leak is implied to be him or Camilla.
“I was a stranger to my older brother”
In January 2019, Harry recalls Meghan saying she felt suicidal, then a letter she wrote to her father was leaked to the Mail, Harry watching his wife’s mood deteriorate even further. William visited, and shoves him—now infamously—on to the dog bowl. There is joy when Archie is born, with Harry transfixed by the miracle of life.
There is more joy when the couple go to chill at Elton John and David Furnish’s home in the South of France, until Elton tells Harry that the Daily Mail will serialize his memoir, pointing out, “I want people to read it!” Harry is furious that Elton is dealing with “the very people who’ve made your life miserable,” but then says he will always love Elton.
Back home, Harry does battle with three terrifying-sounding courtiers, nicknamed the Bee, the Fly, and the Wasp, who he sees as scheming for ever more control around an ailing queen. Harry then launched three lawsuits against British newspapers, which his family does not not support.
The queen and Charles called an emergency meeting with Harry, the Bee, and the Wasp to confront him for making their relationship with the media “complicated” because of the lawsuits. Harry reminded them many family members, the queen included, had sued the press. Why was this different? Plus, he and Meghan had been asking for their protection constantly, and they did nothing to help. “You’re doing a disservice to yourselves by not protecting my wife.”
William and Harry viciously fight by text, with William accusing Harry of being “brainwashed” by therapy. “I was a stranger to my older brother,” Harry writes.
Next came a briefly blissful sojourn to Vancouver Island, Canada, until the media found Harry and Meghan—although the experience, Harry says, gave him and Meghan an opportunity to see life outside the royal fishbowl. The idea of leaving their royal roles was born.
Exit strategy
Harry describes in great detail the alleged skullduggery and briefing and leaking against him and Meghan planning their royal exit. Finally, he recalls the “Sandringham Summit” that played out with the world’s media agog at every machination. Harry writes that the queen, Charles, William, the Bee, and the Wasp were all at the meeting. William was annoyed that he was being accused in the papers of bullying Harry and Meghan out of the family.
There were five options, Harry writes. Option 1 was the status quo. Option 5 was full severance from the family, royal duties, and security. Retaining security was paramount to Harry, to prevent “another untimely death.” Everyone Harry had consulted recommended Option 3: living elsewhere part of the year, continuing their work, and retaining security. The family pushed for Option 1, and said, barring that, they’d only accept Option 5. They had even already drafted an Option 5 statement to the public, without consulting Harry, he writes.
For Harry, keeping security was paramount, especially given the viciousness of what had been said against Meghan.
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
The Palace head of security told Harry that the threat level for them “was still higher for that of nearly every other royal, equal to that assigned the Queen.” As Harry trying to figure out hiring his own security, the Palace directed him to a firm that quoted him a price of “six million a year.”
In the midst of all this, Harry’s old friend/ex Caroline Flack took her own life. “She couldn’t stand it any more, apparently. The relentless abuse at the hands of the press, year after year. I felt so awful for her family. I remembered how they’d all suffered for her mortal sin of going out with me.”
The reason Tyler Perry offered them his house to stay in during the pandemic was “my mother,” Perry told them in a FaceTime call. “My mother loved your mother.” After Diana visited Harlem, “She could do no wrong in Maxine Perry’s book.”
“That was everything…That is a man…My love. That is not a Spare.”
— Meghan Markle
In the house, Archie became obsessed with a painting of a scene from ancient Rome. Finally, after Archie kept staring at it, Meghan noticed the nameplate on the frame: “Goddess of the hunt. Diana.” When they moved to their Santa Barbara house after the press discovered they were at Tyler Perry’s, the move only took hours. “Everything we owned fit in 13 suitcases.”
After Meghan suffered her miscarriage, in the midst of the stress of preparing for the tabloid trial, they buried their unborn child in a tiny package under a banyan tree.
The brothers, as has been widely reported, had another physical altercation after Prince Philip’s funeral.
After their daughter Lilibet was born and they were home, Meghan told Harry that she’s never been more in love with him. She jotted notes in a journal that she showed him: “She said: That was everything…She said: That is a man…My love. She said: That is not a Spare.”
And that moment of cheer—after hundreds of pages of tumult—is the last line of the book.
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CNN
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Britain’s Prince Harry has launched a series of incendiary accusations against members of his family in his new memoir, which reveals a number of private confrontations between him and other senior royals and details his split from the family.
CNN has obtained a copy of the book – called “Spare,” a reference to the Duke of Sussex’s role as the monarchy’s “spare heir.”For days now, many have been gobsmacked by the stunning claims to have emerged from the memoir after they were first reported by British newspaper the Guardian, which managed to get a copy ahead of its scheduled release.
The autobiography, which releases globally on Tuesday, features a litany of rebukes, criticisms and grievances from Harry’s time as a senior member of the royal family, and details of his highly publicized split from the clan in 2020.
Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace have not commented on the allegations in the book, which the 38-year-old royal has promoted in a series of televised interviews.
Here is what we’ve learned from “Spare”:
Among the most explosive claims is Harry’s allegation that Prince William, his older brother, knocked him onto the floor during an argument over Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
The alleged scuffle took place after a conversation between the two siblings, during which William, the heir to the British throne, called Meghan “difficult,” “rude” and “abrasive,” according to the book.
The confrontation escalated until William “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and … knocked me to the floor,” Harry writes.
He details his version of events, which began when William arrived at Harry and Meghan’s then-home, Nottingham Cottage on Kensington Palace grounds in London, to discuss “‘the whole rolling catastrophe’ of their relationship and struggles with the press.”
Harry alleges that William attacked him after he gave his elder brother water and attempted to cool the heated verbal exchange.
“He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”
Harry states in the book that William urged him to hit back, but he refused to do so. William left but later returned “looking regretful” and apologized, he says.
In his interview with Britain’s ITV, which aired Sunday, the duke elaborated on the altercation and recalled seeing a “red mist” take hold of William.
“What was different here was the level of frustration, and I talk about the red mist that I had for so many years, and I saw this red mist in him,” he said, adding, “He wanted me to hit him back, but I chose not to.”
Early on in the book, Harry recalls returning to the UK for the first time after stepping back as a senior royal in April 2021 for the funeral of the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip.
The somber occasion was the first time the duke was reunited with his father, now King Charles III, and William since he and Meghan had spoken to Oprah Winfrey for their bombshell interview.
“So, though I’d flown home specifically and solely for Grandpa’s funeral, while there I’d asked for this secret meeting with my older brother, Willy, and my father talk about the state of things. To find a way out,” he writes in the book, an advance copy of which CNN has obtained.
Harry continues: “I tried to explain my side of things. I wasn’t at my best. For starters, I was still nervous, fighting to keep my emotions in check, while also striving to be succinct and precise.”
However, Harry says, he discovered that his brother and father had “come ready for a fight.” Harry’s retelling suggests tensions with William remained high and quotes Charles pleading to his sons not to “make my final years a misery,” according to the memoir.
The passage also revealed the brothers refer to each other as “Willy” and “Harold” respectively.
Harry also claims in his memoir that Charles also once joked about who Harry’s father really is.
The prince explained his father “liked telling stories” and recounts his father, then Prince Charles, making a joke about his mother Diana’s affair with Major James Hewitt.
Harry writes that his father would joke: “‘Who knows if I’m really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I’m even your real father? Maybe your real father is in Broadmoor, darling boy!”
Harry found it an “unfunny joke, given the rumour circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy’s former lovers: Major James Hewitt.”
The former Princess of Wales, Diana, confirmed she had a five-year affair with Hewitt in a now infamous BBC Panorama interview with journalist Martin Bashir. She said the relationship started in 1986 – two years after the Duke of Sussex was born.
“One cause of this rumour was Major Hewitt’s flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism. Tabloid readers were delighted by the idea that the younger child of Prince Charles wasn’t the child of Prince Charles,” Harry writes. “Never mind that my mother didn’t meet Major Hewitt until long after I was born, the story was simply too good to drop.”
Prince Harry added that if the King thought anything about Major Hewitt, “he kept them to himself.”
In another anecdote from the autobiography, Harry told his father not to marry Camilla, who is now Queen Consort, and feared that she would be a “wicked stepmother.”
“I recall wondering, right before the tea, if she’d be mean to me. If she’d be like all the wicked stepmothers in storybooks. But she wasn’t. Like Willy, I did feel real gratitude for that,” he wrote.
Both William and Harry called her the “other woman,” according to the book.
William “long harboured suspicions” of his father’s affair, “which confused him, tormented him, and when those suspicions were confirmed he felt tremendous guilt for having done nothing, said nothing, sooner,” Harry writes.
When their father wanted “to be public about” his relationship with Camilla, the brothers met her formally for the first time in separate occasions, Harry writes.
“He (William) merely gave me the impression that the Other Woman, Camilla, had made an effort, which he appreciated, and that was all he cared to say,” Harry says. He later compares his meeting with her as getting an injection, writing in the book, “close your eyes, over before you know it.”
Prince Harry claims to have killed 25 people while serving with the British army in Afghanistan, saying that in the heat of combat he viewed his targets as “chess pieces” rather than people.
The prince completed two tours of Afghanistan, one spanning 2007 to 2008 and the other from 2012 to 2013.
Advancements of technology “in the age of Apaches and laptops,” allowed Harry to say “precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed,” adding that, “I felt it vital never to shy away from that number.”
“So, my number: Twenty-five. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed,” he writes.
Harry also says he “didn’t think of those twenty-five as people. You can’t kill people if you think of them as people. You can’t really harm people if you think of them as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board, Bads taken away before they could kill Goods. I’d been trained to “other-ize” them, trained well. On some level I recognized this learned detachment as problematic. But I also saw it as an unavoidable part of soldiering.”
The remarks have sparked criticism from some British security and military figures – and an angry rebuke from the Taliban.
One part of Harry’s life story that many wondered if he would share was the death of his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II. He does in fact reveal that it was his father Charles who first called him last September to say that the Queen’s health “had taken a turn.”
In the memoir, Harry recounts immediately then sending a text message to William to ask if he and Kate were flying to Balmoral – and when and how.
There was no response from William, Harry says.
He writes that he then received another call from Charles, who told Harry that he was welcome at the Scottish residence but that his wife, Meghan, was not.
Harry says he spent much of the time on his flight to Scotland staring at the clouds, replaying the last time he’d spoken with his grandmother.
“Four days earlier, long chat on the phone. We’d touched on many topics. Her health, of course. The turmoil at Number 10,” Harry recalls.
As the plane began its descent, Harry says he received a text message from Meghan asking him to call her and then he checked the BBC’s website.
“Granny was gone. Pa was King,” he writes.
He also opens up about the moment he saw the Queen’s body inside a room within Balmoral Castle.
“I braced myself, went in. The room was dimly lit, unfamiliar – I’d been inside it only once in my life. I moved ahead uncertainly, and there she was. I stood, frozen, staring. I stared and stared. It was difficult, but I kept on, thinking how I’d regretted not seeing my mother at the end. Years of lamenting that lack of proof, postponing my grief for want of proof. Now I thought: Proof. Careful what you wish for.”
Harry says he then whispered to her that he hoped she was happy, that she was with her late husband, Prince Philip.
In another part of the memoir, it’s revealed that the Duchess of Sussex allegedly upset the Princess of Wales by saying she must have “baby brain” because of her hormones after she had given birth and during the run up to the royal wedding in 2018.
Harry describes a 2018 meeting with William and Kate at their residence – which, according to the duke, was an attempt to clear the air between both couples.
Prince Harry reportedly claims that Kate demanded an apology from Meghan for offending her.
Kate allegedly told Meghan that “we’re not close enough for you to talk about my hormones!” according to the book.
Harry went on to say that Meghan said she spoke to all her friends that way.
Harry recounted that the Prince of Wales called Meghan “rude” and pointed his finger, saying “it’s not what’s done here in Britain,” to which Meghan reportedly replied “Kindly take your finger out of my face.”
“Meg said she’d never intentionally do anything to hurt Kate, and if she ever did, she asked Kate to please just let her know so it wouldn’t happen again,” Harry writes.
“We all hugged. Kind of.”
The autobiography also revisits the controversial incident of wearing a Nazi costume to a party in 2005. Harry alleges that his decision to wear it was influenced by Prince William and his wife Catherine who encouraged him to do so.
In 2005, Harry was pictured on the front page of the UK’s Sun newspaper wearing a swastika armband on a German military jacket at a costume party.
At the time, Harry took responsibility for the incident and issued an apology through Clarence House Press Office saying he was “very sorry if I caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize.”
The topic was readdressed in the recent Netflix documentary titled ‘Harry and Meghan’ where the Duke of Sussex said it was one of the “biggest mistakes” of his life, adding that he felt “so ashamed afterwards.”
Harry’s new claim that his brother and sister-in-law were involved contrasts with his previous public apologies, in which he took responsibility for the incident alone.
The Duke of Sussex in the new book revisits the time when he was debating which costume to wear and called Prince William and Catherine to ask their opinions, to which they allegedly told him to wear the Nazi uniform over a pilot costume.
“I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. Nazi uniform, they said,” Harry says. “I rented it, plus a silly moustache, and went back to the house.”
Harry tries it on and both William and Kate “howled. Worse than Willy’s leotard outfit! Way more ridiculous!”
He described what followed after a picture of him wearing the costume was released in the media as a “firestorm, which I thought at times would engulf me.”
“And I felt that I deserved to be engulfed. There were moments over the course of the next several weeks and months when I thought I might die of shame,” he adds.
Calling his judgement “swift, harsh,” he says , “I was either a crypto Nazi or else a mental defective. I turned to Willy. He was sympathetic, but there wasn’t much to say.”
Harry ends by saying the “shame would never fade. Nor should it.”
He also addressed a scandal from 2009 when a video emerged of him using a racial slur to describe a fellow soldier from Pakistan.
Harry recalls that he had shot some video of he and some of his fellow cadets as they killed time in an airport.
“I panned the group, gave a running commentary on each lad, and when I came to my fellow cadet and good friend Ahmed Raza Kahn, a Pakistani, I said: Ah, our little P*ki friend…” Harry writes, before adding that he didn’t know the word was a slur.
“Growing up, I’d heard many people use that word and never saw anyone flinch or cringe, never suspected them of being racist,” he explains. “Neither did I know anything about unconscious bias. I was twenty-one, awash in isolation and privilege, and if I thought anything about this word at all, I thought it was like Aussie. Harmless.”
The footage was sent to a fellow cadet for an end-of-year video, he writes, but it was then circulated and “ultimately ended up in the hands of someone who sold it to the News of the World [newspaper].”
Harry recounts that his father’s office issued an apology on his behalf after the video became public and that he’d also wanted to put out a statement but “courtiers advised against it” as it was “not the best strategy, sir.”
“I didn’t care about strategy. I cared about people not thinking I was a racist. I cared about not being a racist,” he writes, adding that he reached out directly to his friend to apologize and was forgiven.
“He said he knew I wasn’t a racist. No big deal,” Harry ends. “But it was. And his forgiveness, his easy grace, only made me feel worse.”
Harry, who now resides in California with Meghan and their two children, also admits taking cocaine at age 17.
Harry writes: “Of course. I had been doing cocaine around this time. At someone’s country house, during a shooting weekend, I’d been offered a line, and I’d done a few more since.”
He added: “it wasn’t much fun,” adding that it didn’t “make me particularly happy as it seemed to make everyone around me.
“But it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal. Feel. Different. I was a deeply unhappy seventeen-year-old boy willing to try almost anything that would alter the status quo,” Harry continues.
Prince Harry has previously admitted to drug use in his youth. In 2002, when he was a 16-year-old schoolboy, he faced accusations of underage drinking and cannabis use, CNN previously reported. A confession of heavy drinking and marijuana use when he was 16 prompted his father to send him to the drug rehab center, Phoenix House UK, for a day.
Elsewhere in the autobiography Harry describes losing his virginity in what he calls a “inglorious episode.”
Harry says he lost his virginity to “an older woman,” who he added “liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me not unlike a young stallion.”
He does not name the woman in the book.
“Among the many things about it that were wrong: It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub,” he writes.
“Obviously someone had seen us,” Harry adds.
Harry also reveals in his memoir that he recreated the journey his late mother took through the Paris tunnel where she and two others were involved in a fatal car crash.
Diana died in 1997, when Harry was 12.
Harry writes he had been invited to the French capital to attend the 2007 Rugby World Cup semi-final and had been provided with a driver. On his first night in the city, he asked the driver if he knew the tunnel – Pont de l’Alma – where Diana’s vehicle crashed in 1997.
He asked to drive at 65 miles per hour (104.6 kilometers per hour) – “the exact speed Mummy’s car had supposedly been driving, according to police, at the time of the crash.”
“I’d always imagined the tunnel as some treacherous passageway, inherently dangerous, but it was just a short, simple, no-frills tunnel,” Harry says, before adding that there was “no reason anyone should ever die inside it.”
Harry also writes that he asked his driver to go through the tunnel a second time.
“It had been a very bad idea. I’d had plenty of bad ideas in my twenty-three years, but this one was uniquely ill-conceived. I’d told myself that I wanted closure, but I didn’t really. Deep down, I’d hoped to feel in that tunnel what I’d felt when JLP [Jamie Lowther Pinkerton, former private secretary to Harry and Prince William] gave me the police files—disbelief. Doubt. Instead, that was the night all doubt fell away,” Harry says.
“I’d thought driving the tunnel would bring an end, or brief cessation, to the pain, the decade of unrelenting pain. Instead, it brought on the start of Pain, Part Deux,” he continues.
In a clip from “Harry: The Interview,” was broadcast in Britain on ITV on Sunday, the prince speaks about his memories of meeting mourners and the guilt he felt while walking outside Kensington Palace following the death of his mother in 1997.
Harry also says that he cried once in the wake of his mother’s death – at her burial.
“Everyone knows where they were and what they were doing the night my mother died,” he tells presenter Tom Bradby.
“I cried once, at the burial, and you know I go into detail about how strange it was and how actually there was some guilt that I felt, and I think William felt as well, by walking around the outside of Kensington Palace.”
Harry described feeling the mourners’ tears on their hands when he shook them. “There were 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we were shaking people’s hands, smiling,” he says. “I’ve seen the videos, right, I looked back over it all. And the wet hands that we were shaking, we couldn’t understand why their hands were wet, but it was all the tears that they were wiping away.”
Prince Harry told CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday he hasn’t spoken with his brother, Prince William, for “a while,” in the second of two major interviews ahead of the publication of his memoir, “Spare,” on Monday.
The Duke of Sussex told Anderson Cooper he doesn’t “currently” speak with the Prince of Wales, “but I look forward to us being able to find peace,” he said. It follows an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby, ahead of what is likely to be an explosive week for the British royals with the release of Harry’s memoir.
Prince Harry also told Cooper that he hasn’t spoken to his father, King Charles III, in “quite a while,” adding the “ball is very much in their court” when asked about the possibility of the family reconciling after Harry’s highly publicized disclosures.
Buckingham Palace has repeatedly declined to comment on the contents of Prince Harry’s forthcoming memoir, which has been the subject of leaks since last week detailing some of his most controversial claims. CNN has not seen a copy of the book but has requested an advance copy from the publisher Penguin Random House.
His most recent interviews cover a wide range of topics from the death of his mother, the Princess of Wales, his frustration towards the British press, the treatment of his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and the subsequent fallout with his family since his marriage.
The interviews set the stage for the string of revelations that are expected to be made public Monday, as Prince Harry continues to push back against what he refers to as “the institution,” offering a revealing look inside the estranged family.
Despite the fractured relationship between the two brothers, Prince Harry told Cooper he loved William “deeply.”
“My brother and I love each other. I love him deeply,” the Duke of Sussex said. “There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years.”
He added that nothing he has written 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,” Prince Harry said.
The book’s title of “Spare” is a reference to an “heir and a spare,” a saying in the United Kingdom that refers to the need to have a child to inherit an aristocratic title. Harry was next in line to the British throne after William until William’s children were born – now he’s fifth in the line of succession.
The strained relationship between the brothers has been a common theme in leaked excerpts from the book and Harry’s media interviews, which revealed deep divisions between the siblings.
Perhaps the most incendiary revelation to emerge was Prince Harry’s claim of a scuffle with the Prince of Wales during an argument over his wife in 2019, as he described while reading in an excerpt of his memoir on ITV on Sunday.
Prince Harry said his brother never tried to dissuade him from marrying Meghan, but expressed some concerns and told him, “‘This is going be really hard for you,’” Prince Harry recalled during his interview with Bradby.
“I still to this day don’t truly understand which part of what he was talking about,” Prince Harry continued. “Maybe he predicted what the British press’s reaction was going to be.”
In the interview and in excerpts from his memoir shared by ITV, the Duke of Sussex addressed how strife in his family has been fueled by the relationship between Buckingham Palace and media outlets.
“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,” Prince Harry told Bradby. “The saddest part of that is certain members of my family and the people that work for them are complicit in that conflict.”
He also stated that the “leaking” and “planting” of “a royal source” to the press “is not an unknown person, it is the palace specifically briefing the press, but covering their tracks by being unnamed.”
Prince Harry added that he thinks “that’s pretty shocking to people. Especially when you realize how many palace sources, palace insiders, senior palace officials, how many quotes are being attributed to those people, some of the most heinous, horrible things have been said about me and my wife, completely condoned by the palace because it’s coming from the palace, and those journalists have literally been spoon-fed that narrative without ever coming to us, without ever seeing or questioning the other side.”
Prince Harry echoed those sentiments with CBS’ Cooper, adding even at the young age of 12, he felt resentment toward the British media.
“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,” he said. “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.”
In both interviews, Prince Harry spoke about how his mother was hunted by paparazzi, recalling the traumatic night his father told him Princess Diana had died from injuries sustained in a car crash.
“I really think about how many hours he’d been awake. And the compassion that I have for him, as a parent having to sit with that for many, many hours, ringing up friends of his, trying to work out, how the hell do I break this to my two sons?”
Harry said he never wants to find himself having to do the same.
“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,” Prince Harry told ITV’s Bradby.
Diana was killed in 1997, when the car she was traveling in crashed inside a Paris tunnel. Prince Harry was 12 years old at the time. He told Cooper his memories of the days that followed are blurry, but recalls seeing the throng of people outside Buckingham Palace who came to offer their condolences.
“I think it’s bizarre, because I see William and me smiling,” he said. “I remember the guilt that I felt … The fact that the people that we were meeting were showing more emotion than we were showing, maybe more emotion than we even felt.”
Prince Harry told Cooper he “refused to accept she was gone” and for “may years” believed she had decided to disappear.
The Duke of Sussex said he only cried once his mother’s coffin went into the ground. “That was the first time that I actually cried… there was never another time,” he said.
Prince Harry also recalled the events around the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8 at Balmoral Castle. The duke was at a charity event in London when the palace announced that the queen was under medical supervision.
“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… 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. “I was not invited.”
He recalled spending time with the Queen in her bedroom after she had died.
“I was really happy for her. Because she’d finished life. She’d completed life, and her husband was waiting for her. And the two of them are buried together,” Prince Harry said.
The Duke of Sussex also told ITV’s Bradby about his decision to write the book, saying, “38 years of having my story told by so many different people, with intentional spin and distortion felt like a good time to tell own my story and be able to tell it for myself. I’m actually really grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to tell my story because it’s my story to tell.”
Prince Harry pointed out that he has tried over the last six years to resolve his concerns with his family privately.
“It never needed to get to this point. I have had conversations, I have written letters, I have written emails, and everything is just, ‘No, you, this is not what’s happening. You, you are imagining it,’” he said. “That’s really hard to take. And if it had stopped, by the point that I fled my home country with my wife and my son fearing for our lives, then maybe this would have turned out differently. It’s hard.”
The duke said he wants “reconciliation but first there needs to be some accountability,” with respect to his family.
Prince Harry has previously blamed the constant media intrusion as a critical stressor for him and his wife that ultimately led to their decision to step down as working members of the Royal Family in 2021.
In a six-part Netflix documentary released last month, the couple said press attacks, the lack of action from the palace to prevent them and the couple’s increasing suspicions that the royal household was actually feeding the media pushed Meghan to a dark place.
“You can’t just continue to say to me that I’m delusional and paranoid when all the evidence is stacked up, because I was genuinely terrified about what is going to happen to me,” Prince Harry told ITV’s Bradby.
“And then we have a 12-month transition period and everyone doubles down. My wife shares her experience. And instead of backing off, both the institution and the tabloid media in the UK, both doubled down,” he added.
Still, the duke said, “forgiveness is 100% a possibility.”
“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 have 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. At the moment, I don’t recognize them, as much as they probably don’t recognize me,” Prince Harry said.
On Monday, the duke’s interview with “Good Morning America” co-anchor Michael Strahan will air on the ABC show, followed in the evening by a half-hour special on ABC News Live. And to top things off, the duke will make an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” hours after his book is released on Tuesday.
Prince Harry has drawn criticism from some British security and military figures – and an angry rebuke from the Taliban – after claiming in his autobiography that he killed 25 of the insurgent group’s fighters while serving for the British Army in Afghanistan.
Harry disclosed the figure in his upcoming autobiography “Spare,” according to British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, which said it obtained a copy of the Spanish version of the book ahead of its official release slated for Tuesday, January 10.
“My number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me,” Harry reportedly writes. In another section, he is quoted as describing Taliban insurgents as “chess pieces” taken off the board, rather than people.
CNN has not seen a copy of the book but has requested an advance copy of the book from the publisher Penguin Random House. A number of UK media outlets obtained Spanish-language copies on Thursday, and quoted translated excerpts.
The prince’s comments prompted a sharp backlash from members of the military community, with leading figures saying they could jeopardize his safety and give the British Army a bad reputation.
The UK’s former national security adviser Kim Darroch, who was the British Ambassador to the United States from 2016 to 2019, told Sky News he would have advised Harry against making the statements. And Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired British army officer, told the same network they “tarnished” his reputation and “unjustly” painted the British Army in a negative light.
“His suggestion that he killed 25 people will have re-incited those people who wish him harm,” Kemp said. “Let’s hope they don’t succeed and I’m sure he’s got pretty good security, but that’s one problem.
“The other problem I found with his comments was that he characterized the British Army basically as having trained him and other soldiers to see his enemy as less than human, just as chess pieces on a board to be swiped off, which is not the case. It’s the opposite of the case,” he added.
The ruling Taliban, which returned to power in 2021 after two decades and is again pursuing a brutal crackdown against women’s rights, also responded angrily to Harry’s comments.
“Mr. Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return,” said Anas Haqqani, who works as an acting adviser to the minister of interior and is the son of the founder of the Haqqani network, Jalaluddin Haqqani.
“Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes,” he added.
Prince Harry served in the British Army for 10 years. He completed two tours of Afghanistan, one spanning 2007 to 2008 and the other from 2012 to 2013. He achieved the rank of captain in 2011 and qualified as an Apache Aircraft commander. Captain Harry Wales, as he was known in the Army, retired from the service in 2015.
During his time serving with the British Army in Afghanistan, Harry said, he used to watch back footage of each “kill” from the nose-mounted camera on his Apache helicopter after returning to base, the Telegraph reported.
Former Royal Marine Ben McBean, whom Harry served alongside in Afghanistan, also wrote on Twitter on Thursday: “Love you #PrinceHarry but you need to shut up! Makes you wonder the people he’s hanging around with. If it was good people somebody by now would have told him to stop.”
It is unclear whether McBean was referring specifically to Harry’s comments on his time in the military, or more generally to a slew of other revelations in Harry’s memoir that have sparked turmoil for Britain’s royal family.
Early reporting about the book’s contents has dominated front pages in the UK and threaten another headache for Harry’s father, King Charles III, and his brother, Prince William.
Perhaps the most dramatic revelation to emerge was the claim that William physically attacked Harry during an altercation in 2019, first reported by The Guardian.
CNN’s Niamh Kennedy and Ivana Kottasova contributed to this report.
Prince Harry has accused his brother, William, of physically assaulting him during an argument over his wife, Meghan Markle, in 2019, according to The Guardian.
The UK newspaper claims to have seen an advance copy of Prince Harry’s highly anticipated memoir, Spare, in which Harry, the Duke of Sussex, reportedly alleges his brother William, the Prince of Wales, knocked him to the floor during the altercation.
The alleged scuffle took place after a conversation between the two brothers, during which William,the heir to the British throne, called Markle “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive,” according to The Guardian.
The confrontation escalated until William “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and … knocked me to the floor’,” The Guardian reported.
CNN has requested an advance copy of the book from publisher Penguin Random House, but has not received a response. Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace and a spokesperson for the Sussexes declined CNN’s request for comment on the alleged altercation.
The Guardian article focuses on the alleged physical altercation between the brothers but describes the entirety of the book as a “remarkable volume.”
The article reports Harry’s version of events, in which William arrives at Harry and Meghan’s then home, Nottingham Cottage on Kensington Palace grounds, to allegedly discuss “‘the whole rolling catastrophe’ of their relationship and struggles with the press.”
Harry alleges that William attacked him after he had offered him water and attempted to cool a heated verbal exchange, according to The Guardian.
The article quotes Harry: “He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”
The article says Harry states in the book that William urged him to hit back, but he refused to do so. William left but later returned, “looking regretful” and apologized, according to the Guardian article, quoting the book.
Spare is due to be released on January 10.
Since their wedding in 2018, Harry and Meghan’s relationship has been under intense media scrutiny, with particular focus placed on the Duchess of Sussex.
In a recent Netflix documentary, Harry blamed the media for placing undue stress on his Meghan, leading to her having a miscarriage and suffering suicidal thoughts.
The couple said the unrelenting media coverage ultimately led them to quit working as members of the Royal family.
Harry admitted in the six-part documentary that he didn’t deal with Meghan’s deteriorating mental health “particularly well” at first.
“I knew she was struggling; we were both struggling, but I never thought it would get to that stage. The fact it got to that stage I felt angry and ashamed,” Harry recounted, adding: “I dealt with it as institutional Harry as opposed to husband Harry.”
Meghan said she wanted to go somewhere for help but claimed she wasn’t allowed to because of concerns about how it would look for the institution, without specifying who she believes stopped her. She made similar comments in her explosive 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 to connect with a trained counselor or visit the NSPL site. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.
Netflix’s documentary about Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, debuted with a total of 81.55 million hours watched in its first week, the company said in a press release Tuesday. That’s the highest viewing time of any documentary to debut on the streaming service in its premiere week.
The series appeared in the Top 10 TV list in 85 countries and was No. 1 in the United Kingdom. It was one of the most watched series on Netflix
(NFLX) globally for that week, with the Addams Family drama “Wednesday” getting 1 billion views.
Part two of “Harry and Meghan” will be released on Netflix Thursday with a further three episodes focusing on their decision to leave the Royal Family.
In a trailer for the second part of the documentary, Prince Harry tells viewers, “they were happy to lie to protect my brother,” while his wife says “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves, I was being fed to the wolves.”
Prince Harry discusses “institutional gaslighting” in a new trailer for part two of their highly anticipated Netflix docuseries, which will have three episodes and will be available Thursday.
In the clip, released Monday, the Duke of Sussex discusses stepping back from royal duties and ponders what might have happened to the couple “had we not got out when we did.”
“Our security was being pulled. Everyone in the world knew where we were,” Meghan says.
In the first three episodes of the docuseries, which have already aired, the couple shared intimate details of their courtship, took aim at the “unconscious bias” inside the royal family, and criticized the media attention they’d been subjected to — particularly from Britain’s tabloid press.
In a Netflix web posting introducing the trailer for the second installment of the series, the company said, “Theirs is one of the most high-profile love stories in history, and even the most plugged-in fans and followers of their story have never heard it told like this before.”
Buckingham Palace said it would not be commenting on the docuseries when the first part released last Thursday.
London looked like a picturesque Christmas card as snow fell on Sunday night – the perfect time for Buckingham Palace to release the first royal Christmas card of King Charles III’s reign.
Chosen by the King and Camilla, Queen Consort, the photo was taken by Sam Hussein at the Braemar Games in Scotland on September 3, five days before Queen Elizabeth II died and when Charles was still the Prince of Wales.
It features the couple looking at each other, with the King in profile wearing a beige suit and striped tie and Camilla wearing a green hat and jacket.
The Queen didn’t attend the Braemar Games this year. Britain’s longest-reigning monarch died on September 8, aged 96, after 70 years on the throne.
This Christmas will be the first for the royal family without the Queen, who usually spent the holiday period at Sandringham, her country estate in rural Norfolk around 100 miles north of London.
It has been a tumultuous few weeks for the monarchy after Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex criticized the “unconscious bias” inside the royal family in the first part of a Netflix documentary series released on Thursday.
That documentary followed on the heels of serious allegations of racism inside palace walls, after an honorary aide resigned and apologized following complaints that she repeatedly asked a Black British charity boss where she was “really from.”
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The first few episodes of the Duke and Duchess’ highly-anticipated Netflix documentary series aired on Thursday.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the first three parts:
The couple talked about how they first met on social media.
“Meg and I had met through Instagram. I was scrolling through my feed. Someone who was a friend had this video of the two of them with the like Snapchat thing … like dog ears.” Harry said: “I was like, who is that?”
Meghan said she looked through his feed, before the pair got each other’s numbers.
Harry turned up late to the pair’s first date in Soho, London, in July 2016.
Meghan said: “You were late and I couldn’t understand why he would be late. But he kept texting saying, ‘I’m in traffic, I’m so sorry.’”
Harry recalled: “I was panicking, I was freaking out. I started sweating.” Unaware of this, Meghan began to doubt that the date would go anywhere, thinking he might have an “ego.”
But when he eventually showed up he was profusely apologetic, which Meghan described as “so sweet,” adding: “You were genuinely so embarrassed.”
Meghan added: “He was just so fun. Just so refreshingly fun and that was the thing we were like childlike together.”
They arranged to meet again the following night.
“That’s when it hit me,” Harry said. “This girl, this woman, is amazing. She’s everything I’ve been looking for.”
The couple described how their relationship was cemented in Africa, when Meghan traveled to join Harry on a visit to Botswana inAugust 2016 – having only met him twice before.
“We had to get to know each other before the rest of the world and before the media joined in,” said Harry.
They spoke of living in close quarters with the bare minimum and how they were still so unsure of how the relationship would develop.
Harry spoke at length about the media’s ever present role in his family life, starting with footage taken outside the hospital following his birth.
Of the ongoing attention throughout his childhood, he said: “The majority of my memories are of being swamped by paparazzi.”
He recalled learning as a young child how to handle the attention, saying: “Within the family, within the system, the advice that’s always given is ‘don’t react. Don’t feed into it.’”
“My mum did such a good job in trying to protect us. She took it upon herself to basically confront these people.”
Footage of family ski holidays was included to highlight this. In one clip, Harry is seen alongside his brother Prince William and cousins Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie as they are made to pose for the crowd of photographers, in an unwritten agreement that would ultimately allow them privacy later in the holiday. But that was followed by another more intrusive clip which led to his mother confronting the photographer.
Harry brought up the now discredited 1995 Panorama interview with his mother, Princess Diana. While he acknowledged that she had been “deceived,” he said that she had spoken “the truth.”
He said: “My mother was harassed throughout her life with my dad but after they separated the harassment went to new levels.”
The “moment she left the institution” left her “completely exposed,” he said.
Growing up, he witnessed “pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution.” He added: “What happened to my mum … I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”
In a telling section on his experience of other royal marriages, Harry said: “I think for so many people in the family, especially the men, there can be a temptation or an urge to marry someone who would fit the mold, as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with.
“The difference between making decisions with your head or your heart. And my mum certainly made most of her decisions, if not all of them, from her heart. And I am my mother’s son.”
Harry spoke about ways Meghan is similar to his mother, Diana, who died when he was 12 years old.
“So much of what Meghan is and how she is is so similar to my mum. She has the same compassion, she has the same empathy, she has the same confidence, she has this warmth about her,” said Harry.
“I accept that there will be people around the world who fundamentally disagree with what I’ve done and how I’ve done it. But I knew that I had to do everything I could to protect my family, especially after what happened to my mum.”
In her first extensive public comments, Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland spoke about her first time meeting Harry, as well as her fears for her safety and regrets as a parent. She also described the last five years as “challenging.”
“He was 6’1”, a handsome man with red hair, really great manners. He was just really nice. And they looked really happy together. Yeah, like he was the one,” she said.
Describing the early years of her daughter’s childhood, Ragland – who is African American – recalled repeatedly being asked if she was the nanny as her daughter’s skin was lighter.
Her mother said: “As a parent, in hindsight I would absolutely like to go back and have that very real conversation about how the world sees you.”
When Meghan began to face negative media attention, Ragland recalled telling her daughter “this is about race,” with Meghan replying: “Mommy, I don’t want to hear that.”
After news of their relationship broke, Meghan recalled how quickly she became the focus of photographers and the media.
The royal family regarded such intrusion almost as a workplace hazard, according to Harry.
“As far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well,” Harry said.
“So it was almost like a rite of passage. Some of the members of the family were like ‘right, but my wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?’ I said the difference here is the race element.”
Meghan recalled meeting Prince William and his wife Catherine over dinner.
Oblivious to royal protocol, she said she was “barefoot” and wearing ripped jeans at the time. She described herself as a “hugger,” but said that this can be “jarring” for some British people.
“I guess I started to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside carried through on the inside,” she said. “That formality carries over on both sides, and that was surprising to me.”
Harry said that his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, was the first senior member of the royal family to meet Meghan.
Meghan recalled being told that she would have to curtsy, while Harry said: “How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you all need to curtsy. Especially to an American. That’s weird.”
He went on to say that members of his family were “incredibly impressed,” though were uncertain about the difference in their backgrounds and thought that her being a Hollywood actress meant “this won’t last.”
“The actress thing was the biggest problem, funnily enough,” said Meghan. “There was a big idea of what that looks like from the UK standpoint. Hollywood – it was very easy for them to typecast that.”
In contrast to Meghan’s experiences growing up mixed race, Harry said that there was a “huge level” of unconscious bias in the royal family.
“The thing with unconscious bias is actually no one’s fault, but once it’s been pointed out or identified within yourself, you then need to make it right,” he said.
Harry even addressed the time when he wore a Nazi uniform to a private party in 2005, saying it was one of the “biggest mistakes” of his life, adding that he felt “so ashamed afterwards.”
The duchess discussed her estrangement from her father following a controversy over whether he staged a series of paparazzi style photographs in the lead up to their 2018 wedding.
Harry described the situation with his father-in-law as “incredibly sad.”
“I shouldered that because if Meg wasn’t with me then her dad would still be her dad,” he said.
Meghan opened up about her half-sister Samantha Markle, who she said she hadn’t seen since her early twenties but who frequently spoke of her in the media.
Meghan said: “I don’t know your middle name. I don’t know your birthday. You’re telling these people that you raised me, and you’ve coined me ‘Princess Pushy.’”
Also interviewed on the show was Ashleigh Hale, Samantha Markle’s estranged daughter who Meghan remains close with.