The first of Prince Harry’s television interviews to promote his contentious new book, Spare, has already aired in the UK.
The prince and journalist Tom Bradby had a sit-down interview, which ITV aired on Sunday. Harry’s rift with the royal family, his learning of his mother Princess Diana’s passing in a 1997 car accident, and his hopes that he and wife Meghan Markle would collaborate closely with Prince William and Kate Middleton—a dream he admits was quickly dashed—were all topics of discussion during the men’s conversation.
Harry, 38, claimed that when accompanying his brother and sister-in-law on outings, he had occasionally been a “third wheel.”
“I had put a lot of hope in the idea that, you know, it’d be William and Kate and me and whoever,” he told Bradby. “I thought … the four of us would, you know, bring me and William closer together, we could go out and do work together, which I did a lot as the third wheel to them, which was fun at times but also, I guess, slightly awkward at times as well.”
But after meeting his future wife, then starring on the series Suits, he realized that things weren’t going to go quite so smoothly.
“I don’t think they were ever expecting me to get … into a relationship with someone like Meghan who had, you know, a very successful career,” Prince Charles’s younger son shared, adding that Meghan’s outsider status and fame led to a “a lot of stereotyping.”
“There was a lot of stereotyping that was happening, that I was guilty of as well, at the beginning,” Harry said, noting that this caused a “barrier” to his family “welcoming” the actress into their circle.
When asked to specify what stereotypes Meghan , who divorced producer Trevor Engelson in 2014, was subjected to, Harry responded: “American actress, divorced, biracial.”
“There’s all different parts to that and what that can mean but if you are, like a lot of my family do, if you are reading the press, the British tabloids, at the same time as living the life, then there is a tendency where you could actually end up living in the tabloid bubble rather than the actual reality,” he continued.
Prior to his 2018 wedding, Harry said that his older brother “aired some worries.”
It was the British press, he said, that branded the two royal couples as “the fab four,” something that bred “competition” rather than connection.
“The idea of the four of us being together was always a hope for me,” he said. “Before it was Meghan, whoever it was going to be, I always hoped that the four of us would get on. But very quickly it became Meghan versus Kate. And that, when it plays out so publicly, you can’t hide from that, right? Especially when within my family you have the newspapers laid out pretty much in every single palace and house that is around.”
The interview also saw Harry clarifying to longtime confidant Bradby that he and Meghan never accused the royal family of racism, despite revealing in their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey that there had been speculation as to what their son Archie’s skin color might be. “Having lived within that family,” Harry said, he attributed the comments to “unconscious bias” rather than racism.