Prince Harry has revealed what the status of his relationship with his family is like after he and his wife Meghan Markle stepped down as working royals.
Prince Harry, 36, has admitted that he feels “let down” by his father Prince Charles, 72. The Brit made the frank admission during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired on CBS on March 7. He also used the chat as an opportunity to clarify his relationship with his older brother, Prince William, whom he said he “loves to bits.”
Sitting next to his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry spilled his feelings during Oprah with Meghan and Harry: A Primetime Special. After revealing during the broadcast that there was a time that the next in line to the throne had stopped taking his calls, he said that they were now in contact once again.
“There’s a lot to work through there,” he said about his relationship with Prince Charles. “I feel really let down because he’s been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like and Archie’s his grandson. But, at the same time, of course I will always love him. But there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship.”
Prince Harry’s comments came after he and his 39-year-old wife made a series of shocking claims about the royal family. They included Meghan alleging that – contrary to tabloid reports that she had made her sister-in-law Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, cry before her May 2018 wedding – Prince William’s wife had actually “hurt” her “feelings.”
HollywoodLife has reached out to Buckingham Palace for clarification on that point, but Prince Harry himself, revealed to Oprah what his relationship with his only brother is like amid constant speculation that there is a rift between the two.
“I love William to bits…” he said about the 38-year-old future king. “We’ve been through hell together…a shared experience, but we’re on different paths.” “The relationship is space at the moment and time heals all things, hopefully,” he later added.
The prince also addressed Meghan’s earlier comments that someone in the royal family speculated about the darkness of their unborn child’s skin, during his biracial wife’s first pregnancy. That controversy, the couple said, was amid a refusal to either give the child a royal title or protection.
Asked directly by Oprah who made the comments and exactly what was said, Prince Harry declined to elaborate. “That conversation I’m never going to share but at the time it was awkward. I was a bit shocked,” he said.
Admitting that he was “not comfortable” sharing more, he did say that it took place “right at the beginning. What will the kids look like? That was right at the beginning when she wasn’t going to get security…”
The Duke of Sussex also touched upon his relationship with the rest of the family, including his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. “I’ve spoken more to my grandmother in the last year than I have in many, many years,” he said, before admitting that he and the monarch have “a really good relationship and understanding.”
In fact, Meghan told Oprah that, when she found out that Prince Philip, 99, had been admitted to hospital in February, she picked up the phone and called her grandmother-in-law to check in.
Meghan and Harry’s bombshell interview is the first time that they have explicitly spoken about why they decided to step down as senior royals and quit the U.K. and institution in January 2020. The primetime interview included a series of shocking revelations including Meghan’s admission that she felt suicidal at one point and the Duke’s belief that his royal relatives feel “trapped.”
As for the couple, despite the harsh treatment by the tabloids and tension within the royal family, they say that they have had their own happy ending. Meghan – who is pregnant with a baby girl – told Oprah that it’s “greater than any fairytale you’ve ever read.” Meanwhile, Prince Harry said that “without question” his wife “saved” him.