Prince Harry is getting honest about his mental health in a way we have never before seen. The Duke of Sussex opened up to Oprah Winfrey about his life and how therapy has helped him get him to a better place.
In their new Apple TV+ series, “The Me You Can’t See,” the former British royal details his past, and talks about the devastating impact losing his mother when he was so young had on his life.
He also recounts how his wife Meghan Markle helped him turn to therapy and details why they chose to step back from royal life.
Prince Harry’s Biggest Regret Is Not ‘Calling Out The Racism’
“Do I have any regrets? Yeah. My biggest regret is not making more of stance earlier on in my relationship with my wife and calling out the racism when I did. History was repeating itself. My mother was chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone that wasn’t white and now look what’s happened.”
The Duke of Sussex admits that he’s fearful that he could lose his wife in the same way his mom, Prince Diana died in a car crash after being chased by paparazzi in 1995.
“You wanna talk about history repeating itself? They’re not gonna stop until she dies. It’s incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life. Like the list is growing and it all comes back to the same people. The same business model, the same industry.”
Meghan Markle Encouraged Prince Harry To Seek Therapy
“And I saw GPs. I saw doctors. I saw therapists. I saw alternative therapists. I saw all sorts of people, but it was meeting and being with Meghan,” he said. “I knew that if I didn’t do the therapy and fix myself that I was gonna lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with.”
Early on in their relationship, Prince Harry came to the realization that he had to work through the problems from his past to help his future relationship with Meghan Markle.
“I quickly established that if this relationship was gonna work that I was gonna have to deal with my past because there was anger there and it wasn’t anger at her, it was just anger and she recognized it. She saw it.”
Prince Harry Is Ashamed With How He Dealt With Meghan Markle’s Suicidal Thoughts
“People have seen the photograph of us you know squeezing each other’s hands as we walked into the Royal Albert Hall in London for a charity event. She was six months pregnant at the time. What perhaps people don’t understand is earlier that evening, Meghan decided to share with me the suicidal thoughts and the practicalities of how she was going to end her life. The scariest thing for her was her clarity of thought. She hadn’t lost it. She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t self-medicating be it through pills or through alcohol. She was absolutely sober. She was completely sane yet in the quiet of night these thoughts woke her up.”
“The thing that stopped her from seeing it through was how unfair it would be on me after everything that had happened to my mum and to now be put in a position of losing another woman in my life with a baby inside of her. Our baby. I’m somewhat ashamed of the way that I dealt with it. And of course, because of the system that were in and the responsibilities and the duties that we had, we had a quick cuddle and then we had to get changed and had to jump in a convoy with a police escort and drive to the Royal Albert Hall for a charity event and then step out into a wall of cameras and pretend as though everything’s okay. There wasn’t an option to say, ‘You know what? Tonight we’re not gonna go’ because just imagine the stories that come from that.”
Stepping Away From The Royal Family
“When my wife and I were in those chairs gripping each other’s hand the moment the lights go down Meghan starts crying, I’m feeling sorry for her but I’m also really angry with myself that we’re stuck in this situation. I was ashamed that it got this bad. I was ashamed to go to my family because to be honest with you, like a lot of other people my age could probably relate to, I know that I’m not gonna to get from my family what I need. I then had a son who I’d far rather be solely focused on rather than every time I look in his eyes wondering whether my wife is gonna end up like my mother and I’m gonna have to look after him myself. That was one of the biggest reasons to leave. Feeling trapped and feeling controlled through fear both by the media and by the system itself, which never encouraged the talking about this kind of trauma, but certainly, now I will never be bullied into silence.”
Princes Charles’ Advice To Prince William & Prince Harry As Kids
“My father used to say to me when I was younger, he used to say to both William and I, ‘Well it was like that for me, so it’s gonna be like that for you.’ That doesn’t make sense. Just because you suffered that doesn’t mean that your kids have to suffer. In fact, quite the opposite. If you suffered do everything you can to make sure that whatever negative experiences that you had, that you can make it right for your kids. We chose to put our mental health first. That’s what we’re doing and that’s what we will continue to do. Isn’t this all about breaking the cycle? Isn’t this all about making sure that history doesn’t repeat itself? That whatever pain and suffering has happened to you that you don’t pass on?”
Prince Harry also shared that he was told by members of the royal family to play the game so his life would be easier.
“Family members have said, ‘Just play the game and your life will be easier,’ but I’ve got a hell of a lot of my mum in me. I feel as though I’m outside of the system, but I’m still stuck there. The only way to free yourself and break out is to tell the truth.”
How Paparazzi Following Princess Diana Affected Him As a Child
“I always wanted to be normal as opposed to Prince Harry. Just being Harry. It was a puzzling life. But unfortunately, when I think about my mum the first thing that comes to mind is always the same one over and over again. Strapped in the car, seatbelt across with my brother in the car as well and my mother driving being chased by three, four, five mopeds with paparazzi on and then she was always unable to drive because of tears. There was no protection. One of the feelings that comes up with me always is the helplessness. Being too young. Being a guy, but too young to be able to help a woman, in this case your mother. And that happened every single day.”
Harry Admits To Feeling Angry Over The Lack Of Justice In His Mother’s Death
“When my mum was taken away from me at the age of 12, just before my 13th birthday. I didn’t want the life. Sharing the grief of my mother’s death with the world. For me, the thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses’ hooves going along the pavement. Along the mall, the red brick road. By this point I was- both of us were in shock. It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me. Showing 1/10 of the emotion that everybody else was showing. I thought, ‘This my mum. You never even met her.’”
He also shared that he felt angry following her passing because there was no justice for his mother, “I was so angry with what happened to her and the fact that there was no justice at all. Nothing came from that. The same people that chased her into the tunnel, photographed her dying on the backseat of that car.”
He Tried To Numb The Pain With Drugs and Alcohol
“I was willing to drink. I was willing to take drugs. I was willing to try and do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling. But I slowly became aware that okay I wasn’t drinking Monday to Friday, but I would probably drink a week’s worth in one day on a Friday or a Saturday night. And I would find myself drinking not because I was enjoying it, but because I was trying to mask something.”
Prince Harry’s Burnout From ‘Hectic’ Royal Responsibilities
“Towards my late 20s everything became really hectic for me, but to the point of exhaustion. I was traveling all over the place because, you know, from the family’s perspective I guess I was the person who like, ‘We need someone to go there. Nepal. Harry, you go.’ I was always the yes man. I was always the one willing to say yes. But that yes and yes and yes, yes, of course, yes, yes, yes led to burnout. And it was like someone had taken the lid off. All of the emotions that I had suppressed for so many years suddenly came to the forefront.”
Why Prince Harry Felt The Happiest In The Army
“The happiest times in my life was the ten years in the army. Without question. Because I got to wear the same uniform as everybody else. I had to do all the same training as everybody else. I started from the bottom like everybody else. There was no special treatment because of who I was. That was where I felt my most normal and actually within my younger years, the most comfortable I felt was out in Afghanistan, away from the media.”
London Is a Trigger’ For Prince Harry
“For most of my life, I’ve always felt worried, concerned, a little bit tense and uptight whenever I fly back into the UK. Whenever I fly back into London and I could never understand why. I was aware of it. I wasn’t aware of it at the time when I was younger, but after I started doing therapy and stuff like that I became aware of it. I was like why do I feel so uncomfortable? And of course, for me, London is a trigger. Unfortunately because of what happened to my mum and because of what I experienced and what I saw.”
Harry Shares The Biggest Lesson He Learned In Life
“One of the biggest lessons that I’ve ever learned in life is you’ve sometimes got to go back and to deal with really uncomfortable situations and to be able to process it in order to be able to heal. For me, therapy has equipped me to be able to take on anything. That’s why I’m here now. That’s why my wife is here now. That feeling of being trapped within the family is, there was no option to leave. Eventually, when I made that decision for my family I was still told, ‘You can’t do this.’ And it’s like ‘Well how bad does it have to get until I am allowed to do this?’ She was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.”
Meghan Markle & Prince Harry: Sweetest Snapshots Of Their Affection
View GalleryCopyright © 2024 by NBC Universal, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be republished, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.