Happy with his wife and his life! Prince Harry opened up about the perceived change in his personality that came after meeting Meghan Markle in 2016.
“You know my family read the tabloids. So whether you walk around saying you believe it or not, it’s still leaving an imprint in your mind,” Harry, 38, said during the Sunday, January 8, episode of 60 Minutes when describing his family’s initial feelings toward Meghan, 41. “So if you have that judgment based on a stereotype right at the beginning it’s very, very hard to get over that.”
The Archewell cofounder explained that a “large part” of his family and the U.K. press’ hesitation to accept the Suits alum stemmed from his own personality shift.
“Numerous people [were] like, ‘He’s changed, she must be a witch. He’s changed,’” Harry recalled. “As opposed to, ‘Yeah, I did change, and I’m really glad I changed.’”
The Duke of Sussex explained that once Meghan entered his life, he put his wild, single days behind him. “Rather than getting drunk, falling out of clubs, taking drugs, I’ve now found the love of my life,” he said of that moment. “And I now have the opportunity to start a family with her.”
Harry, who married the California native in May 2018, noted that he had a great mistrust of the British tabloids in part because of their stories about his wife.
Early on in their relationship, the Invictus Games founder issued a public statement condemning the British press for their alleged racially insensitive pieces about Meghan. At the time, Harry was allegedly reprimanded by his father, King Charles III, and brother, Prince William, for speaking up.
“They felt as though it made them look bad. They felt as though they didn’t have a chance or weren’t able to do that for their partners,” Harry claimed to journalist Anderson Cooper on Sunday. “What Meghan [had] to go through was similar in some part to what [Princess] Kate and what [Queen Consort] Camilla went through [but with] very different circumstances.”
The BetterUp CIO remembered that the U.K. tabloids “jumped on” any angle that dealt with Meghan’s race, which is something his sister-in-law, 40, and stepmother, 75, didn’t have to face.
“I had no idea the British press were so bigoted. Hell, I was probably bigoted before the relationship with Meghan,” Harry said before clarifying that before his romance with the Bench author he doesn’t know how he thought about race. “Put it this way, I didn’t see what I now see.”
The former military pilot opened up in his memoir, Spare, which comes out on Tuesday, January 10, about how unprepared he was for the racism that would eventually come done on Meghan once they went public.
He recalled feeling “ashamed” and “angry” when a U.K. tabloid headline that he read, “Harry’s new girl is (almost) straight outta Compton” hit newsstands during the infancy of their relationship.
“Pa and Willy were furious. They gave me an earful. My statement made them look bad, they both said,” Harry wrote in the book when discussing the backlash he received from his family over his public response to the article. “Why in hell? Because they’d never put out a statement for their girlfriends or wives when they were being harassed.”
Spare hits bookshelves on Tuesday, January 10.
