‘Stage-managed and unchallenging from start to finish’: TV critics call Harry: The Interview ‘choreographed’ and accuse Tom Bradby of ‘letting him off the hook too often’
- Prince Harry once again turned the fire on his family in a bombshell interview with Tom Bradby in Prince Harry: The Interview, which aired on ITV on Sunday
Prince Harry once again turned the fire on his family in a bombshell interview with Tom Bradby in Prince Harry: The Interview, which aired on ITV on Sunday evening.
TV critics have accused Bradby of sycophancy due to his 20-year friendship with the Duke, calling the interview ‘stage-managed and unchallenging from start to finish’ and ‘choreographed.’
While one critic said Bradby is not a bad interviewer, he is also not a great one, for failing to press Prince Harry on the some of the more difficult topics, such as when he rails against press intrusion, during his own personal marketing strategy.
However, others argued that Harry’s sadness over the death of his beloved mother, Princess Diana, in 1997 was emotional and moving and heartbreaking to watch.
The trauma is etched on his face as he recounts how he demanded and got to see the secret government file about Diana’s death.
‘Stage-managed and unchallenging from start to finish’: TV critics have called Harry: The Interview ‘choreographed’ and accuse Tom Bradby of ‘letting him off the hook too often’
Nick Hilton, writes for The Independent: ‘If you’re not already drained by the endless Windsor saga, get ready for another glimpse inside Britain’s iciest family.
Bradby, meanwhile, is never one to leave a boot unlicked. He describes Harry’s prose alternately as “moving”, “searing”, “funny”, “scathing”, and “heartbreaking”. “I don’t think anyone’s going to read it and not fly through it,” comes his final conclusion.
‘It is a level of sycophancy – Bradby disclaims at the start that they “have known each other for more than 20 years” – typical of a product that is stage-managed and unchallenging from start to finish. For all that the younger prince rails against press intrusion, he has created, here, little more than a press release.’
Rift: The Duke claimed that Camilla forged ‘connections’ with the press in the UK in order to try and ‘rehabilitate her image’ and get ‘positive stories’ written about her
The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan is more supportive and claims ‘if she had lived to see this, it wouldn’t have killed the Queen. But it might have made her a republican.
‘We were softened up first by the memory of his childhood and the shattering death of his mother when he was 12 – a psychic wound that rarely fully heals even for children brought up in the most functioning families, which few would claim the Windsors to be.
‘A very moving segment of the audiobook is played – beautifully read by Harry himself – about how he demanded and got to see the secret government file about Diana’s death. His press secretary removed the most awful photos but let him see as much as he thought Harry could bear, because he knew he had to.’
Harry: The Interview – what the critics are saying…
The Independent, Nick Hilton
Stage-managed and unchallenging from start to finish – we’re being offered yet another glimpse into Britain’s iciest family in this strange and choreographed ITV special
The Guardian, Lucy Mangan
So horribly sad it could have turned the Queen anti-monarchy. In the space of one hour and 40 minutes, the king’s second son is moving, charming – and absolutely lays waste to the royals and all they stand for
The Express, Mike Ward
Harry is not desperate to ‘reconcile’, he is desperate to flog his tawdry book. Do you suppose Prince Harry is familiar with the expression “least said, soonest mended”? If so, it’s clearly not advice he cares to heed.
The Times, Carol Midgley
Tom Bradby lobbed some decent hard balls at Prince Harry in Harry: The Interview but he didn’t ask him the obvious question. Will there ever come a point, Harry, when this whingeing will stop?
The Telegraph, Anita Singh
Prince Harry ITV interview review: The Duke seemed incredulous that Tom Bradby was challenging his narrative
It was a strong interview but unpleasant to watch. Bradby looked exhausted by the end. Although I do suspect that, after this interview, he will be back on the Buckingham Palace Christmas card list.
Heartbreaking: A segment of the audiobook is played – read by Harry – about how he demanded and got to see the secret government file about Diana’s death (Harry pictured with his mother in 1987)
Mike Ward writes for The Express: ‘It reeks of the most cynical marketing strategy. Tom didn’t seem all that keen to press Harry on that point, but then nor did I expect him to.
‘My family helped to drive out Meghan’: Harry launches extraordinary new attack on Royals, branding them ‘abusers’ who planted stories to rehabilitate their own reputations
That’s not to say Bradby is a bad interviewer. But he didn’t show himself to be a great one.
A great interviewer doesn’t just ask, he also pushes for proper answers. With Harry banging on about “owning [his] story”, he did press him to acknowledge his brother’s “counter-narrative”… But by the end, you were left with the feeling he’d let him off the hook a little too often.
Carol Midgely from The Times writes: ‘Tom Bradby lobbed some decent hard balls at Prince Harry in Harry: The Interview but he didn’t ask him the obvious question. Will there ever come a point, Harry, when this whingeing will stop?
‘Let’s be fair, some of his complaints were valid and the opening section about how his father told him about the death of his mother (“Darling boy; Mummy’s been in a car crash”) was heartbreaking. The trauma is still written on his face.’
‘But overall Bradby did a good interviewing job, often with a visibly raised eyebrow gently trying to show Harry where he had contradicted himself. Harry has some solid grievances but he is immersed in therapy-speak and it often felt at times, yet again, like a very privileged man having a very long grumble.’
Anita Singh from The Telegraph writes: ‘Prince Harry ITV interview review: The Duke seemed incredulous that Tom Bradby was challenging his narrative.
‘So in terms of scoops the interview had little to recommend it, because every bit of the book had been done to death. As a psychological study, though, it was grimly fascinating. Nothing is Harry’s fault, and almost everything can be blamed on the press. He mentioned the tabloids more times than I could count, with a relentlessness that bordered on the obsessive.
‘It was a strong interview but unpleasant to watch. Bradby looked exhausted by the end. Although I do suspect that, after this interview, he will be back on the Buckingham Palace Christmas card list.’
Heartbreaking: The Duke of Sussex speaks often about his mother in his new memoir Spare, which is released in the UK on January 10
‘I see a lack of scrutiny to my family towards a lot of things’: Harry says his relatives have avoided accountability
The Royal Family has avoided accountability ‘on a lot of things’, the Duke of Sussex told Mr Bradby.
Speaking about what he wants from his family and book, Harry told Mr Bradby: ‘I want reconciliation, but first there needs to be some accountability. 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’s gonna happen to me.’
Referencing his decision to step down as a senior royal, he continued: ‘And then we have a 12-month transition period, and everyone doubles down. My wife shares her experience.’
He said that instead of backing off, ‘both the institution and the media doubled down’.
Mr Bradby then addresses the claims Harry makes about his stepmother in Spare. Harry narrates the passage that reads: ‘Shortly after our private meetings with her [Camilla], she began to develop her long-term strategy, a campaign directed at marriage and with time, the Crown (with the blessing of our father, we supposed).
‘News stories started appearing in all the newspapers about her conversations with Willy, stories which recounted lots of small details, none of which came from my brother, of course.’
Prince Harry pictured with his brother Prince William and father Prince Charles at the funeral of Princess Diana
Harry says in the book that they could have only come from ‘the one person’ with intimate knowledge of the meetings, who could provide details with ‘pin point’ accuracy.
Charles had tried to win over his sons before asking the public to accept Camilla, the book claims. Harry then astonishingly says that meeting the future Queen Consort for the first time was like an ‘injection’. He later says that ultimately he and William approved of Camilla.
He writes: ‘I remember wondering… if she would be cruel to me; if she would be like all the wicked stepmothers in the stories’.
But Harry told Mr Bradby: ‘There’s no part of any of the things that I’ve said are scathing towards any member of my family, especially not my stepmother. There are things that have happened that have been incredibly hurtful, um, some in the past, some current.’
He added: ‘No institution is immune to accountability or taking responsibility. So you can’t be immune to criticisms either.’
Charles ‘struggled with parenthood and would have admitted as such’
Harry insisted that while he loved his father, the former Prince of Wales struggled with parenthood and claims Charles would have agreed with this assessment.
Body language expert – Harry shows anger and resentment talking about ‘certain members of his family’
Narrating his memoir in an interview with Tom Bradby, the Duke of Sussex said: ‘He’d always given an air of not being quite ready for parenthood: the responsibilities, the patience, the time. Even he, though a proud man, would have admitted as much.’
Taking a further swipe at his father, Harry said he was ‘never made’ for single-parenthood but concedes: ‘To be fair, he tried’.
Harry also recounts the moment he told his father over dinner that he was suffering with mental health issues and claims Charles expressed regret on not getting him help sooner.
‘Over dinner one night at Highgrove, Pa and I spoke at some length about what I’d been suffering. I gave him the particulars, told him story after story,’ Harry said in the interview.
‘Towards the end of the meal he looked down at his plate and said softly: “I suppose it’s my fault.
‘”I should have got you the help you needed years ago.” I assured him that it wasn’t his fault, but I appreciated the apology,’ he added.
Other royals inspired ‘countless’ books trashing Meghan, Harry claimed
The Duke of Sussex said that ‘planting and leaking’ by members of his family has caused ‘millions of words’ to be written ‘trying to trash my wife’.
Harry said he wrote his tell-all book because of ’38 years… of spin and distortion’.
The memoir, which is due to be published on Tuesday, contains a string of revelations – with Harry’s brother the Prince of Wales the subject of a number of them.
The claims made about William include that he physically assaulted Harry in 2019 and that he was ‘wasted’ on rum hours before his wedding. Mr Bradby asked the duke what his brother would say to him about the book.
‘He’d probably say all sorts of different things,’ Harry said.
‘But you know, for the last however many years, let’s just focus on the last six years, the level of planting and leaking from other members of the family means that in my mind they have written countless books, certainly millions of words have been dedicated to trying to trash my wife and myself to the point of where I had to leave my country.’
Harry said he decided to write his memoir because it felt like a good time to tell his story.
‘[After] 38 years of having my story told by so many different people with intentional spin and distortion, [it] felt like a good time to own my story and be able to tell it for myself.
‘You know, I don’t think that if I was still part of the institution that I would have been given this chance to.
‘So, I’m actually really grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to tell my story because it’s my story to tell.’
In the past the duke has complained about the invasion of his private life by the media.
Mr Bradby asked him how he could now justify the amount of disclosures made in the book.
‘There was a motto, a family motto of “never complain, never explain”,’ he said.
‘And what people have realised now, through the Netflix documentary and numerous stories coming out over the years, is that, that was just a motto.
‘There was a lot of complaining and there was a lot of explaining and it continues now.’ He said the ‘truth’ is now coming from his own lips, rather than through the tabloid media.
‘But for me, I sit here now, speaking to you, answering the questions that you put to me, and the words and the truth will come from my lips rather than using other people, especially through the tabloid media.
‘And we’re six years into it now, and I have spent every single year of those six, doing everything I can privately to get through to my family.’
Harry said that it ‘never needed to be this way’ and that he had tried speaking to his family.
‘And the thing that is the saddest about this, Tom, is it never needed to be this way,’ he added.
‘It never needed to get to this point. I’ve had conversations, I’ve written letters, I’ve written emails, and everything is just, “no, this is not what’s happening. You are imagining it”.
‘And 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’ve turned out differently. It’s hard.’
‘Nothing I’ve said is scathing towards any member of my family’, Harry claims when questioned over comments about Camilla
During the interview, Harry was asked about his ‘consistently scathing’ comments in his book about his father’s wife, Queen Consort Camilla, and his claims that his ‘interests were sacrificed on her PR altar’.
Narrating excerpts from his memoir, Harry recounted how he and his brother Prince William begged their father not to marry the now Queen Consort Camilla, but claimed their pleas fell on deaf ears and the former Mrs Parker Bowles began a ‘campaign aimed [at] marriage, and eventually the Crown, with Pa’s blessing we presumed’.
The duke added that ‘she began to play the long game’ with the brothers by holding private summits with them, before accusing her of leaking stories about them to the media.
‘Stories began to appear everywhere in all the papers about her private conversation with Willy, stories that contained pinpoint accurate details, none of which had come from Willy, of course. They could only have been leaked by the other person present,’ Harry said.
He adds in the interview that Charles ‘seemed to be very, very happy’ with Camilla and insists that all he and William wanted was their father to be happy.
But despite his salvo of attacks on his stepmother, the Duke of Sussex insisted there was ‘no part of any of the things that I’ve said are scathing towards any member of my family, especially not my stepmother’.
Harry, pictured here with his mother in Spain in 1987, told ITV’s Tom Bradby he had cried only once over Diana’s death
Harry says he would have fought William in Nottingham Cottage had he not been in therapy
Asked about his shocking claim that his elder brother Prince William physically attacked him at Nottingham Cottage in 2019, the Duke of Sussex told Mr Bradby how he witnessed the ‘red mist’ come over the heir to the throne, who wanted him to fight back.
Harry said like most siblings, he and the Prince of Wales ‘used to fight all the time’ as children, but the alleged assault in the grounds of Kensington Palace – which came after William is said to have branded Meghan Markle ‘rude’ and ‘difficult’ – was another story.
‘What was different here was this level of frustration and, you know, I talk about the red mist that I had for so many years, and I saw this red mist in him,’ he said.
A narrated extract from Spare recounts the alleged attack by the Prince of Wales, who Harry accuses of grabbing him by the collar, breaking his necklace and knocking him to the ground, where he landed on his dog’s bowl, which cracked under his back.
Prince William is said by Harry in the book to have urged his younger brother to hit him back, but Harry claims he told him to leave, before William later returned to apologise and asked him not to tell Meghan of the alleged assault.
In the ITV interview, Harry said he could ‘pretty much guarantee today that if I wasn’t doing therapy sessions like I was and being able to process that anger and frustration that I would’ve fought back, one hundred percent’.
The duke insisted he ‘chose not to’ physically retaliate against William because he was ‘in a more comfortable place with my own anger’.
But rather than accepting any responsibility for the damage caused to his relationship with his brother, Harry laid the blame firmly on the media and staff within William’s office.
‘So much of the relationship between me and William and the way it played out was because of the narrative, or the – the distorted narrative that was being pushed through the British press.
‘And some people within his office that were feeding him utter nonsense,’ Harry told Mr Bradby.
Harry added he and William used to shoot each other with BB guns.
‘I demanded to see the photos’: Harry on the aftermath of Diana’s fatal crash
The Duke of Sussex revealed how he ‘demanded’ to see pictures of Princess Diana’s fatal crash as he struggled to believe his mother had really died.
Duke says there was ‘absolutely no way’ he’d let William walk alone behind Diana’s coffin
Speaking in an ITV interview to promote his memoir, Harry said he had been searching for ‘evidence’ that his mother was dead and describes looking at images of her devastating 1997 collision.
The Duke also claimed there was a lot about the crash that remained ‘unexplained’ – and suggested that if the paparazzi were removed from the equation she would still be alive.
Referring to a section in his book, Tom Bradby said Harry had asked his private secretary to see the ‘secret government file’ on Diana’s death before Harry narrates a passage from Spare.
In his book, Harry recounts the searing moment he first laid eyes on the images of his beloved mother laying in the debris of the catastrophic crash.
‘”At last, I came to the photos of mummy. There were lights around her, auras almost halos….The colour of the lights was the same colour as her hair. Golden,”‘ Harry reads.
Still very young, he struggled at first to understand what the lights might be before coming to the shocking realisation that they were ‘visages’ of the paparazzi captured in the flash of the cameras.
‘”As I realise their true origin, my stomach clenched. Flashes. They were flashes, and within some of the flashes were ghostly visages. And half visages,”‘ he continued.
‘Paps, and reflected paps and refracted paps on all the smooth metal and services and glass windscreens. Those who’d chased her.
‘They’d never stopped shooting her…Not one of them was checking on her, offering her help, not even comforting her.’
Prince Harry (centre) stands between his brother and father as the hearse carrying his mother’s coffin prepares to leave Westminster Abbey following her funeral service
Harry says he is ‘thankful’ that his secretary had removed the more harrowing content from the file.
However he said he saw several images: ‘I saw the back of her blonde hair, you know, slumped on the back of the seat.’ Explaining the thinking behind his request, Harry said: ‘I was looking for evidence…that it actually happened, that it was true.
‘But I was also looking for something to hurt, because at that point I was still pretty numb to the whole thing.’ He added that it ‘still hurts’ to know that his mother was photographed as she lay dying.
He said there were still several question marks over the death and having driven through the Paris tunnel himself, added that it was ‘impossible to lose control’ unless you were ‘completely blinded’.
Despite believing that the people responsible for the crash – the paparazzi – ‘all got away it’, Harry said he doesn’t see the point of reopening an inquiry.
Lili is ‘obsessed’ with her older brother Archie
The Duke of Sussex has revealed that his daughter Lili is ‘obsessed’ with older brother Archie.
Harry, in his ITV interview with Tom Bradby to promote his autobiography Spare, recounted how three-year-old Archie has to tell his one-year-old sibling: ‘No Lili. I need my space.’
The duke was discussing how his brother the Prince of Wales ignored him at Eton, saying: ‘He didn’t want anything to do with me. And that hurt at the time.’
But speaking about his own children, he added: ‘But now, well the gap between me and William is very similar to Archie and Lili, and to see Lili obsessed with Archie, and Archie like ‘No, no Lily, I need my space, I need my space’, now I get it.
‘I get how irritating the younger sibling can be to the older sibling.
‘But in the moment, at the time, I didn’t – I didn’t really grasp that, I didn’t really realise it, but yes, I’ve always loved my brother.’
Lady Susan Hussey ‘never meant any harm’ with ‘what part of Africa are you from’ comments
Lady Susan Hussey ‘never meant any harm’ to the charity campaigner who accused her of racial abuse, Prince Harry said.
The duke defended the former lady-in-waiting to the Queen, who was embroiled in a race row and later resigned from her position after repeatedly asking Ngozi Fulani where she was ‘really from’ during a Buckingham Palace reception in November.
Lady Susan later met up with Ms Fulani, who was representing abuse charity Sistah Space at the event, and apologised.
In ITV’s Harry: The Interview, the royal continued to back Lady Susan – and he said he would never reveal the identity of the family member who allegedly enquired about son Archie’s skin tone.
Who is Tom Bradby? Friend of Harry’s who fell out with William
BACKGROUND & EDUCATION
Tom Bradby was born in Malta where his father served in the Royal Navy.
After a short time on the island his family moved back to Britain, and he was privately educated at £20,000-a-year Westbourne House School near Chichester before attending Sherborne School in Dorset.
The famous public school charges £42,000 a year for boarders. It was founded in 1550 but traces its history back more than 1,300 years, with alumni including actor Hugh Bonneville and WWII codebreaker Alan Turing.
Mr Bradby boasts some impressive family connections, with his great-grandmother winning an Olympic gold for tennis in 1908, while his godfather, Matt Bradby, won two caps with the England rugby team in the early 1920s.
Tom Bradby with his wife Claudia at Meghan and Harry’s wedding at Windsor Castle in 2018
In a 2017 interview with the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine, Mr Bradby paid tribute to his family including his mother, Sally, who was a tennis coach.
‘My father Dan was in the Navy and was an honourable man who strove to do the right thing,’ he said.
‘My mum, Sally, was a selfless force of nature. She died of cancer in 2012 aged 72 and my father was 83 when he died from a heart attack last year.’
CAREER
As host of ITV’s News at 10, Mr Bradby is one of the UK’s most recognisable journalists. He joined ITN as an editorial trainee in 1980 and has served in a series of roles, including Ireland correspondent and Asia correspondent.
As royal correspondent, he presented coverage of the Golden Jubilee and the funerals of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother. He has hosted the News at 10 since 2015 and anchored major events including the Brexit referendum in 2016, the US election in 2020 and Queen Elizabeth’s funeral earlier this year.
Mr Bradby also has a career as a fiction writer – publishing nine thrillers including Shadow Dancer, which in 2012 was made into a film starring Andrea Riseborough and Clive Owen. Despite his high profile in the UK, Mr Bradby is less well known in America and has joked about being mistaken on Twitter for the American football legend Tom Brady.
PERSONAL LIFE
The journalist has been married to his jewellery designer wife Claudia since 1994 and they have three children, Jack, Louisa and Sam. In a newspaper profile, he said his favourite drink is a Talisker whisky with ice, and he would choose Jerusalem and I Vow To Thee My Country as the hymns to be played at his funeral.
The journalist was signed off work for three months in 2018 after developing insomnia and what he describes as an addiction to the sleeping pill zopiclone.
Mr Bradby, who has worked for ITV News producer ITN for 30 years, told how Claudia had warned him he was close to a ‘very dangerous cliff-edge’ and urged him to see a psychiatrist. At his lowest he believed he would lose his family and job.
Speaking to former Downing Street director of communications Craig Oliver, for his podcast Desperately Seeking Wisdom, Mr Bradby said: ‘One of the really nice things about [being open] is people feel able to come and talk to me about when they’re not feeling well. And it just makes you realise, God, how many people out there are suffering and need help?’
ROYAL LINKS
Mr Bradby is a friend of the Sussexes and previously interviewed them for a documentary about their 2019 Africa tour. He famously asked Meghan about her mental health, with the duchess thanking him and saying ‘not many people have asked if I’m ok’.
In their recent Netflix series, Meghan said the interview marked a turning point. She said: ‘There is only so much you can take on your own, so you end up saying, ”Something has to change”. It was a huge turning point.
‘It was when we started having harder conversations about what needs to happen for us to be able to continue to make this work.’
Mr Bradby first got to know Harry when he worked with him on a documentary about Lesotho when the prince was on his gap year after leaving Eton. The journalist went on to attend his 2018 wedding to Meghan. He also went to William and Kate’s wedding, but has since admitted his relationship with the Prince of Wales has suffered amid the fallout from Megxit.
Mr Bradby has said his mental breakdown made him treat Meghan and Harry more sympathetically.
He said: ‘I’m very happy for Ngozi Fulani to be invited into the palace to sit down with Lady Susan Hussey and to reconcile, because Meghan and I love Susan Hussey.
‘And I also know 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. (It) was absolutely horrendous, the response.’
His backing comes in contrast to his brother, Prince William, whose spokesman condemned the comments made by Lady Susan, the heir’s own godmother, as ‘unacceptable’ in the wake of the furore.
Harry said he would not describe as racist comments allegedly made by an unnamed family member about Archie’s skin colour, after the bombshell allegation was raised during the Sussexes’ interview with US chat show host Oprah Winfrey last March.
Harry told Tom Bradby: ‘You speak to any other mixed race couple around the world, and you will probably find that the white side of the family have either openly discussed it, or secretly discussed ‘What are the kids gonna look like?’
‘And that is part of a bigger conversation that needs to be had.
He added: ‘The difference between racism and unconscious bias, the two things are different.
‘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.’
Asked why he had not identified the family member involved, Harry said: ‘I will never talk about that.’
‘I’m very happy and very at peace’, Harry insists – despite constant attacks on his family
Despite the constant attacks on his family, the Duke of Sussex said he is ‘very happy and very at peace’ living with wife Meghan and their two children Archie and Lilibet in their multimillion-dollar California mansion.
He claimed he is ‘in a better place than I’ve ever been’, which he said ‘probably angers some people [and] infuriates others’ who never thought he would step away from life as a senior royal.
‘It wasn’t something that I would have necessarily chosen at the time, but I own my story and I own the results.
‘I’ve got two beautiful kids and an amazing wife, like the happiness in my family now I have never felt anywhere else before,’ he told Mr Bradby.
‘I guess there’s also a lot of people who refuse to accept that I could be happy out here, because of what I’ve left behind. But the reality is I’ve never been happier,’ he added.
Asked if the peace and happiness he felt was because he was physically away from ‘aggravating’ factors like the British media, Harry said ‘the safety of my family is my priority’, adding this was ‘the main reason’ behind Megxit.
Of his new life, Harry said: ‘I feel safe here, my family feel safe here, I’m happy, my family’s happy’.
He admitted that while it is ‘difficult going back’, he believes he is mentally strong enough to attempt a reconciliation with the Royal Family.
The duke insisted he is in ‘such a good headspace now, that whatever conversations need to happen, or whatever the future holds to the point of where, can there be reconciliation and is there some, whatever comes from that, that I’m in a really good place to be able to have those conversations and come back and not linger on it, or not let it pull me back in.’
Clarkson’s ‘cruel’ article about Meghan ‘incites violence’
Harry said Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘cruel’ article in the Sun newspaper about his wife Meghan encourages people around the world to believe it is an acceptable way to treat women.
He referred to comments made by former Top Gear presenter Clarkson, 62, who wrote that he ‘hated’ the Duchess of Sussex and dreamed of her being paraded through British towns and publicly shamed.
Harry said: ‘When we’re talking about accountability… the Jeremy Clarkson article, so not only what he 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.
‘To use my stepmother’s words recently as well, there is a global pandemic of… violence against women.
‘It’s no longer a case of me asking for accountability, but at this point the world is asking for accountability, and the world is asking for some form of comment from the monarchy but the silence is deafening.’
The Sun apologised after the piece – in which Clarkson said ‘everyone who’s my age thinks the same way’ – became the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s most complained-about article.
During the ITV interview, Harry said he felt a responsibility to change the media before referencing Caroline Flack, who took her own life at the age of 40 in February 2020.
A coroner ruled that Flack took her own life after learning prosecutors were going to press ahead with an assault charge over an incident involving her boyfriend, Lewis Burton, and could not face the press coverage.
Harry, who claimed he was not at war with the media, said about the press: ‘I made peace with it, I was willing to let a lot of it go back in 2020 when we left the country.
‘And if living in a new country, minding our own business during lockdown, not saying anything, not doing anything that would affect the British media at all, that every single day there’s an attack, well then, the assumption of it going away or moving on isn’t the case.
‘So I feel as though there is a responsibility to see this through because I think the benefits to a lot of people will be felt. You know I talk about Caroline Flack in the book as well.’
Hollywood actress Cameron Diaz is also referenced in the headline-hitting interview which aired on Sunday evening.
Mr Bradby said: ‘Let’s tackle the press, I just wanna concede a couple of things so we don’t have to talk about them because it’s very clear in the book, paparazzi [were] horrific around your mother, still very horrible today, totally get that.
‘I think everyone watching this will get that, press doesn’t always tell the truth about you, putting that mildly, and you’re quite funny about that in the book, this relationship to you, there’s your relationship with Cameron Diaz who you never met and there’s some lighter moments in the discussion of the press.’
Harry said his family tried to control the British press ‘for years’ but added it was something they did not want to change because it ‘benefits them’.
Harry: The Interview is available to view on ITVX.
Prince Harry says taking psychedelic DRUGS helped him deal with the ‘grief’ and ‘trauma’ of Princess Diana’s death
The Duke of Sussex, 38, called psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his ‘medicine’ after the huge ‘loss’ of his mother in 1997
Prince Harry credited the use of psychedelic drugs with helping him deal with the ‘grief’ and ‘trauma’ he felt after the tragic death of his mom, Princess Diana.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, called psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his ‘medicine’ after the huge ‘loss’ of his mother in 1997.
While Harry was only 12 when Diana tragically died in a car accident, he admitted in his upcoming book, Spare, that he struggled to come to grips with her sudden passing.
Now he has shared more details about his mother’s death, explaining that he only cried once over his mother’s death – when her coffin was put in the ground – and that he was plagued with guilt over feeling like he was not being emotional enough over her passing for years.
But the former royal said using psychedelics when he got older ultimately ‘cleared away the idea’ that he needed be sad to prove he ‘missed’ his mom.
‘I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,’ he said during the one-hour tell-all interview.
‘But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine.
‘For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that… I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.’
Prince Harry reveals he used to watch videos of his mother Princess Diana online in a desperate attempt to CRY about her death
Prince Harry has candidly admitted that he used to watch videos of his late mother Princess Diana and ‘muster up memories of her’ in an attempt to cry over her death.
The 38-year-old revealed his ‘guilt’ at not being able to shed a tear about Diana’s tragic passing in 1997.
‘There was this weight on my chest that I felt for so many years that I was never able to cry,’ he told host Anderson Cooper, according to a transcript of the interview that DailyMail.com received ahead of the pre-taped interview’s release.
‘So I was constantly trying to find a way to cry… in even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum. And sometimes I watched videos online.’
However, Harry says that, no matter how hard he tried, he ‘couldn’t’ shed a tear – something that filled him with ‘guilt’ for years.
Harry explained during the sit down that he believes he didn’t cry over Diana’s death because he had ‘refused to accept that she was gone’.
He added that there was a huge ‘weight on his chest’ that he ‘felt for so many years’ over not shedding more tears – and that he even tried watching videos of her to bring forth his emotions.
‘I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum,’ he added. ‘And sometimes I watched videos online.’
Harry says that, no matter how hard he tried, he ‘couldn’t’ shed a tear – something that filled him with ‘guilt’ for years
Harry says that Prince William believed their mother Princess Diana was ALIVE for years
Prince Harry revealed that his older brother Prince William was convinced that their mother, Princess Diana, was alive, saying that both brothers believed she would one day get in touch with her sons and whisk them away.
According to Harry, he and William ‘talked about’ the idea that their mother had not died in the 1997 Paris car crash but had instead decided to ‘disappear for a time’ – with the Duke of Sussex explaining that they believed it was ‘all part of a plan’.
‘For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was… she was gone,’ said. ‘Um, part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of, maybe this is all part of a plan.
‘[I believed she had disappeared] for a time, and then that she would call us and that we would go and join her, yeah.’
Harry – who also wrote about this in his bombshell new memoir Spare – added to Mr Cooper that his brother ‘had similar thoughts’, saying: ‘William and I talked about it as well. He had similar thoughts.’
He admitted that he kept this belief alive for ‘many, many years’, adding that he ‘had huge amounts of hope’ that his mother would one day return to be with her children – until he ultimately demanded that he be given access to the police report about her death, which contained graphic images of the scene of her crash.
According to Harry, he wanted to see these images because they provided ‘proof’ that she had really gone.
‘Proof that she was in the car,’ he told Mr Cooper when asked why he’d requested to see the report. ‘Proof that she was injured. And proof that the very paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones that were taking photographs – photographs of her lying half dead on the back seat of the car.’
Harry told Cooper that he was ‘not invited’ to travel to Balmoral with the other royals in order to say goodbye to the Queen before she died. He is pictured arriving at the estate alone
Prince Harry claims he was ‘not invited’ to travel on plane to Balmoral with William and other royals to say goodbye to the Queen before she died
Prince Harry has claimed that he was ‘not invited’ on the plane that the rest of the royals took to Balmoral to see the Queen before her death – as he opened up about the final moments he spent with her.
The Duke of Sussex was back in the UK with Meghan for a slew of charity events last September when his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II’s health suddenly declined on September 8.
The Queen died later that day – but when reports started to circulate that Harry didn’t arrive to the castle until more than two hours after her passing, while the rest of the family got there before her death – many were left to wonder why he came so late.
Now, the royal has claimed that his delayed arrival was the fault of his family members – saying that he was not included in their travel plans, despite the fact that there was plenty of room for him on the plane that they all flew on to get to Balmoral.
He told Cooper that he texted his brother Prince William to see how he and his wife, Kate , 41, were going to get to the estate, located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, but that he was never given the flight details.
‘I asked my brother – I said, “What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there?”‘ he recalled.
‘And then, a couple of hours later, you know, all of the family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together, a plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats.’
‘You were not invited on that plane?’ Anderson asked him, to which Harry replied, ‘I was not invited.’
He ultimately flew to Scotland alone – and by the time Harry got to Balmoral, the Queen had sadly passed away at age 96.
‘I don’t see it as cutting at all’: Prince Harry brazenly insists he has ‘NEVER intended to hurt his family’ – despite launching brutal attacks on royals in memoir AND TV interviews
Prince Harry boldly claimed that he ‘never intended to hurt his family’ with the brutal contents of his bombshell memoir – despite the book, and the various TV interviews the duke has done to promote it, containing several very damaging attacks on the royals.
The 38-year-old father-of-two defended his decision to air his grievances about his family so publicly to Cooper – just over an hour after he gave a nearly-identical one-on-one chat to British TV channel ITV.
When asked by Cooper about a particularly ‘cutting’ passage in his book in which he details his brother William’s ‘alarming baldness’ and his ‘famous resemblance’ to their mother Princess Diana – which the duke wrote was ‘fading with time, with age’ – Harry claimed he saw nothing ‘cutting’ about that passage, nor any other in the memoir.
‘I don’t see it as cutting at all,’ Harry fired back.
‘Um, you know, my brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years.’
The Duke went on to insist that he ‘never intended to hurt his family’ with the publication of the book, however he claimed that he felt the need to share his story in such a public manner in order to ‘squash the idea’ that Meghan ‘was the one that destroyed’ his relationship with his brother.
‘None of anything that I’ve written, anything I’ve included is ever intended to hurt my family,’ he claimed.
‘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 hints that he and Meghan will NEVER give up their royal titles
Prince Harry hinted that he and Meghan will never give up their royal titles, while brazenly asking ‘what difference it would make’.
When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they were stepping away from the monarchy and moving to America in early 2020 – many people called for them to give up their royal titles.
Those cries have become increasingly loud in the years since, during which Harry and Meghan have both launched multiple attacks on the royal family, beginning with their incendiary Oprah interview – and continuing with further TV appearances, a Netflix documentary, and the release of Harry’s bombshell memoir, which he has been promoting in a series of on-air interviews.
More than two years later, a poll revealed in December that 98 per cent of participants still want the pair to be stripped of their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles – especially amid the couple’s bombshell Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, which premiered last month and included several explosive accusations about their time as royals.
But now, the Prince has addressed the burning question surrounding his and his wife’s royal titles – suggesting that the pair will not ever relinquish their status as Duke and Duchess because he doesn’t believe it would ‘make a difference’.
When asked by host Anderson Cooper about why he and Meghan haven’t renounced their titles, Prince Harry fired back, ‘And what difference would that make?’
Anderson then pointed out that ‘one of the criticisms’ that the pair has received is that they ‘want to step back from the institutional role’ but still want to ‘be so public.’
‘Every single time I’ve tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife,’ Prince Harry stated.
‘You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But it’s just a motto. And it doesn’t really hold.’
Prince Harry has hinted that he and his wife, Meghan Markle (seen in 2017) will never give up their royal titles
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