Prince Harry spoke for the first time on American television about his upcoming memoir, Spare. A 60 minute interview with Anderson Cooper. These were some of the revelations from their chat.
Harry was 12 when his mother, Princess Diana, died in a car accident in Paris. It was August 1997 and Harry was at Balmoral Castle in Scotland with other members of the royal family. In his book, Harry recounts the moment he was woken up by his father, Prince Charles, and told what had happened.
“In the book you wrote, he said, ‘Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for her.’ Those phrases stick in my mind like darts on a board,” says Cooper said, “Did you cry?”
“No, no. I didn’t shed a single tear at that point,” said Harry. “I was in shock. I was 12. It’s his 7, 7:30 in the morning. It’s early morning. Your dad comes in and sits on your bed and puts his hands on your knees.” I put it down and said, accident.’I couldn’t believe it.’
“You write in a book,” said Cooper. It’s okay. But after that, nothing went wrong for a long time. ”
“No, nothing, nothing,” said Harry.
Harry wrote in Spare about how he reacted in the days and years after the death of his mother, Princess Diana, in 1997.
“For a long time I refused to accept that she was gone,” said Harry. “You know, she would never do this to us, but she might be part of the plan.”
“Did you really believe that?” asked Cooper.
Harry, who was 12 when his mother died, said, “For a while, then she called us and said we’d go and go together.
Harry said he sought help from a therapist seven years ago, revealing that he’s tried more experimental treatments to help him cope with the grief he still feels from his mother’s death.
“You write a book about psychedelics,” Cooper said. “Ayahuasca, psilocybin, mushrooms. They were really important to you.”
“I would never recommend doing this for recreation,” said Harry. “But by doing it with the right people, these things have a way of working as medicine if you’re suffering from immense loss, grief, or trauma.
“They showed you something,” Cooper asked. “What did they show you?”
“For me, they wiped out windshield, windshield, loss misery,” said Harry. “They cleared this idea that I had in my head that my mother would have to cry to prove that I wanted to see her. All I wanted was to be happy.”
While Prince Harry was in London for a charity event last September, the palace announced that Queen Elizabeth II is under medical supervision at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
“I asked my brother, ‘What’s your plan? How are you and Kate getting there?’ We were jumping on planes together,” said Harry. “It’s a 12-seat, 14-seat, maybe 16-seat plane.”
“You weren’t invited on that plane?” Cooper asked.
“I am not invited,” said Harry.
When Harry arrived at Balmoral alone, the Queen was dead.
Harry wrote that his father initially liked her when he introduced Meghan Markle to the family in 2016. But her brother Prince William was skeptical.
Others in the family were worried, too, Harry told Cooper.
“From the beginning, before I knew her,” said Harry. “And the British press jumped on it, and here we are.”
In his book, the portrayal of Camilla, Prince Harry’s stepmother and now queen, is perhaps the most significant. She married then-Prince Charles in 2005, but the two were romantically involved for decades. Princess Diana famously referred to Camilla as the “third party” in her marriage, and Prince Harry hasn’t forgotten about it.
She was portrayed as a “villain” by the tabloids, Harry told Cooper. “She was the third in their marriage. She needed to restore her image.”
“Did you and your brother directly ask your dad not to marry Camilla?” Cooper asked.
“Yes,” said Harry. “We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought it would do more harm than good. If he’s with his person now, that’s enough.” Why go that far if it’s not always necessary? We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her.
“It was cumulative — I think it was his frustration. It was when he was being told certain things by people in the office,” Harry said. “At the same time, he was consuming a lot of tabloids and a lot of articles. And he had some issues that weren’t based on reality. And I was defending my wife. And he was coming for my wife, my wife, she wasn’t there at the time, but through what he said, I was defending myself, and we I moved from one room to the kitchen and I yelled back at him. rice field.
“Did he beat you?” Cooper asked.
“He knocked me over. I landed in a dog bowl,” said Harry. “I cut my back. I didn’t know it then. But yeah, he apologized later. It was a pretty embarrassing experience.”
Harry and William seemed inseparable from the outside world, but after the death of their mother, they went their separate ways.
“Even when you were in the same school, high school,” Cooper said to Harry.
“Yeah, and it hurt at the time. I just didn’t get it. I was like, ‘We haven’t seen each other in years, but now we can hang out together.'” He used to say, “No, no, no, we don’t know each other when we’re at school.” I took it personally. But yes, you are absolutely right. You nailed the nail in the head. For example, we had very similar traumatic experiences. We dealt with it in two very different ways.
60 Minutes reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. A representative of the palace requested that the report be provided before the broadcast before considering the comments, which it does not do in 60 Minutes.