Prince Harry has said in a new interview that he withheld more damaging information about his family in his new memoir, suggesting he has enough material to write another book.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph’s Bryony Gordon, Harry said: “The first draft was different. It was 800 pages, and now it’s down to 400 pages. It could have been two books, put it that way. And the hard bit was taking things out.”
He said that his relationship with his brother “couldn’t be worse” and, in remarks likely to infuriate William and Kate as gross invasions of privacy, said he fears for William’s children and criticized William as “shut down.”
ADVERTISEMENT
In remarks likely to ruin the weekends of Buckingham Palace staffers, who might have been forgiven for thinking the storm had passed, he said: “There are some things that have happened, especially between me and my brother, and to some extent between me and my father, that I just don’t want the world to know. Because I don’t think they would ever forgive me.”
He also repeated the incendiary core claim in his book, that the palace sells out certain members of the family to the media in return for others being protected, saying newspapers had “a shit tonne of dirt about my family, I know they have, and they sweep it under the carpet for juicy stories about someone else.”
He told Gordon, who interviewed him at his Montecito home: “Though William and I have talked about it once or twice, and he has made it very clear to me that his kids are not my responsibility, I still feel a responsibility knowing that out of those three children, at least one will end up like me, the spare. And that hurts, that worries me.”
In another astonishing swipe at William, he said: “People who’ve experienced trauma deal with it in different ways. I think when it comes to me and William, the fascinating part is that we both experienced a similar traumatic experience.
“He wanted to talk about it when [we were] younger, which built up a little bit of resentment. It wasn’t anything against him, I just didn’t want to talk about it. And then as we got older, I started to go slightly off the rails, and deal with it through drinking and drugs, and he went completely silent and completely shut down. And then my life started to alter and completely change, because I wanted, or had no other choice, than to confront the very thing that I had been running from, or scared of, for all those years.”
Harry attributed much of his changed attitude to taking the psychedelic drug ayahuasca in the interview, saying that “taking ayahuasca with the proper people” helped him finally accept his mother’s death.
He then drew a contrast between his decision to take ayahuasca and William not doing so, saying: “As two brothers, if one of you goes through that experience and the other one doesn’t, it naturally creates a further divide between you. Which is really sad. But as much as William was the first person to even suggest therapy, I just wish that he would be able to feel the same benefits of that as opposed to believing what he doesn’t need to.”
He defended himself against accusations of airing his family’s dirty laundry in public, saying, “What’s the difference between airing lies about your family through the British press, or airing truth through a book? In my case, this is all contained in one place where I hold myself entirely accountable and responsible for what I am saying.”
He reiterated a belief that it is his “life’s mission” to tackle press abuse, of which he says, “It took my mum, it took Caroline Flack, who was my girlfriend, and it nearly took my wife. And if that isn’t a good enough reason to use the pain and turn it into purpose, I don’t know what it is.”
However, it is his claim that half the book was cut that is likely to distress the royals the most. Harry says: “It could have been two books, put it that way…there were other bits that I shared with [ghostwriter] JR [Moehringer], that I said: ‘Look, I’m telling you this for context but there’s absolutely no way I’m putting it in there.’”
“Now you could argue that some of the stuff I’ve put in there, well, they will never forgive me anyway,” he said. “But the way I see it is, I’m willing to forgive you for everything you’ve done, and I wish you’d actually sat down with me, properly, and instead of saying I’m delusional and paranoid, actually sit down and have a proper conversation about this, because what I’d really like is some accountability. And an apology to my wife.”
