22nd October, 2019
Prince Harry has finally publicly admitted the growing rift between he and brother William — saying: “We’re certainly on different paths.”
Harry hinted at the strained relationship in the candid new documentary about he and wife Meghan that’s just aired in the UK. Asked by journalist Tom Bradby how much truth there was to reports of rifts with his brother, Harry at first stumbled over his words.
“Umm… part, part of this role and part of this job and part of this family being under the pressure that it’s under, inevitably, stuff happens. But look: We’re brothers, we’ll always be brothers — and we’re certainly on different paths at the moment according to news.com.
“But I’ll certainly always be there for him as I know he’ll always be there for me.
“We don’t see each other as much as we used to because we’re so busy.
“But I love him dearly and the majority of the stuff is created out of nothing. But as brothers, you have good days, you have bad days.”
Filmed across South Africa, Angola, Malawi and Botswana, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex spoke exclusively to British news anchor Tom Bradby about the causes and issues they care most about and their fresh and personal approach to being modern royals.
MEGHAN ‘WARNED NOT TO MARRY HARRY’
In another scene from the documentary, Meghan told Bradby that the last year of her life had been “hard”.
“I don’t think anybody could understand that. But in fairness, I had no idea — which probably sounds difficult to understand here. But when I first met my now-husband, my friends were really happy because I was so happy, but my British friends said to me: ‘I’m sure he’s great, but you shouldn’t do it, because the British tabloids will destroy your life.’”
“I, very naively because I’m American and we don’t have that there, (said) ‘What are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense! I’m not in tabloids!’ I didn’t get it. So, umm… it’s been complicated.”
“Can you put up with this? Can you deal with it? Can you manage it? Can you continue with it? And what happens if you can’t?” Bradby asked.
“I’ve said for a long time to H — that’s what I call him — it’s not enough to just survive something. That’s not the point of life,” she said.
“You’ve got to thrive. You’ve got to feel happy.”
“I think I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip. I tried, I really tried, but I think what that does internally is probably really damaging. The biggest thing I know is that I never thought this would be easy, but I thought it’d be fair, and that’s the part that’s really hard to reconcile. But I don’t know… I’m taking each day as it comes.”
HARRY’S FIGHTING WORDS
“It seems to be that you are under a lot of pressure. I don’t know if there’s a little bit of worry about your wife being under the same pressure as your mother was under… You’re living in this goldfish bowl, the interest is huge, the pressure is great — do you want to talk me through the last year, and where your head is at?” Bradby asked Harry, who told him he’d “hit the nail on the head.”
“I will always protect my family, and now I have a family to protect. Everything she (Diana) went through is incredibly raw, every single day — and that’s not me being paranoid, that’s just me not wanting a repeat of the past. If anybody else knew what I knew, be it a father, a husband, anyone, you’d probably be doing exactly what I do as well.”
Bradby asked Harry, an outspoken mental health advocate, how he was managing his own mental health in the face of this pressure.
“It’s management, it’s constant management. I thought I was out of the woods, and then suddenly it all came back. Part of this job, and part of any job, means putting on a brave face, and turning a cheek to a lot of the stuff. But for me and for my wife, of course there’s a lot of stuff that hurts — particularly when the majority of it’s untrue.
“But all we need to do is focus on being real and being the people that we are, and standing up for what we believe in. I will not be bullied into playing a game that killed my mother.”
Viewers across the UK have taken to social media to voice their opinions on this remarkably candid look at the royal couple:
The hashtag #WeLoveYouMeghan was trending on Twitter over the weekend amid an outpouring of support for the Duchess after a preview clip from the feature showed her barely containing tears as she spoke of the intense media scrutiny.
“Harry is obviously very concerned about protecting you from what he felt his mother went through. It’s obviously an issue one has to tiptoe into very gently … I don’t know what the impact on your mental and physical health (is), all the pressure you feel?” asked Bradby.
“I would say … any woman, especially when they’re pregnant, you’re really vulnerable, and so that was made really challenging. And then when you have a newborn, you know. And especially as a woman, it’s a lot,” she responded after a moment’s pause.
“So you add this on top of just trying to be a new mum or trying to be a newlywed. It’s um … yeah. I guess, also thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I’m okay, but it’s a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes.”
“And the answer is — would it be fair to say ‘Not really OK’? It’s really been a struggle?” Bradby asked.
“Yes,” Meghan responded quietly, later adding that she and her husband have been “existing, not living” in recent months.
Elsewhere in the hour-long documentary, Prince Harry admitted he was keen to leave the UK and base his family in Africa — but that it was unlikely to happen.
“I don’t know where we could live in Africa at the moment,” he told the reporter.
“We’ve just come from Cape Town, that would be an amazing place for us to be able to to base ourselves, of course it would.
“But with all the problems that are going on there I just don’t see how we would be able to really make as much difference as we’d want to.”
However, he added that they would still focus most of their future work on conservation in Africa.
“The rest of our lives, especially our life’s work will be predominantly focused on Africa, on conservation,” he said.
“There are 19 commonwealth countries across this continent, there’s a lot of things to be done, there’s a lot of problems here but there’s also huge potential for solutions.”
The new documentary comes amid news the couple is planning on taking a six-week break from the spotlight and royal duties.
A royal source told The Sunday Times: “The Duke and Duchess have a full schedule of engagements and commitments until mid-November, after which they will be taking some much-needed family time.”
It’s understood they will fly to Los Angeles next month for Thanksgiving with Meghan’s mum, Doria Ragland, before returning to the UK to spend their first Christmas with Archie at Sandringham with the Queen and other members of the royal family.