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Before the start of his memoirs, Prince Harry gave an interview to the British TV channel ITV.
Daniel KestenholzEditor night duty
Before the start of his memoirs on Tuesday, Prince Harry (38) gave the first of two TV interviews. Harry gave the British broadcaster ITV deep insights into his inner life. After the death of his mother, Princess Diana (1961-1997), he knew that he would take a different path from his family. The rivalry with his older brother and heir to the throne Prince William (40) was already apparent at the time.
A lot of Harry’s autobiography “Spare” has already leaked out in advance, which appears in German under the title “Reserve”. It is now clear that the brothers, who were once thought to be inseparable, have long faced each other in bitter competition. In the book, Harry calls William his “beloved brother” and at the same time “greatest opponent”.
For years he had been trying to mend his relationship with his brother. Was hoping his wife Meghan Markle (41) would be friends with William’s wife, Duchess Kate (41). The opposite happened. William and Kate were “jealous” of Meghan from the start. His brother warned that his marriage to Megan could be “very hard” for him.
The unbearable silence of the palace
Harry is now apparently breaking the silence of the palace. Buckhingham and the Royals have remained silent about the outcast son’s attacks. Harry’s verbal smacks come to nothing. This while the exiled prince has long criticized the British royal family and his own family. The royals didn’t know how to deal with allegations and problems, the 38-year-old said in an ITV interview. “The silence is deafening.”
In between, Harry seems close to tears in the interview recorded in California. Again and again he felt unsupported by his family. “I’m sitting here asking for a family,” says Harry. “Not an institution, a family.” He is looking for reconciliation. But cannot forgive.
“I want my father back. i want my brother back I don’t recognize her right now,” says Harry. In the same way, the two would probably not recognize him at the moment either. “But forgiveness is 100 percent a possibility,” he emphasizes. “I really believe and I hope that a reconciliation between us and my family could have an impact on the whole world.” Maybe that’s naive. But he believes in it.
Softens allegations of racism
Probably as a gesture of reconciliation, the disgraced royal also weakens previous allegations. Meghan and he did not accuse the Royal Family of racism in an interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey (68). Despite reports to the contrary, there is an important difference between racism and “unconscious bias”. He had previously noticed this in himself and was common in royal circles.
Harry insists that he never wanted to hurt his family. He criticizes his family’s strategy of placing stories and narratives in the British tabloid media. If “royal insider sources” were quoted, this information would come from the palace. Journalists would be fed and did not question the palace’s motives. “The way the British press is behaving at the moment,” says Harry, “is doing great damage to Britain.”
And Harry launches a new attack against the royals and raises new allegations. “My family helped to drive Meghan away,” he says – and describes his family as “abusers”, as “tormentors”, “perpetrators”. Kate called Meghan a “multiracial American actress” – making it clear that his wife was not welcome as a royal.