Dancing with the devil? Prince Harry claimed that some of his family members would stop at nothing to repair their public personas — even if they had to hurt other royals.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, said during his ITV interview, which aired on Sunday, January 8, that after “many, many years of lies being told about me and my family,” he decided to speak his truth in his upcoming memoir, Spare.
Harry alleged that the “relationship between certain members of the family and the tabloid press” has gotten out of hand.
“Those certain members have decided to get in the bed with the devil to rehabilitate their image,” the prince claimed about the royals, but he didn’t identify anyone by name.
The former military pilot claimed in an excerpt of his book, which hits shelves on Tuesday, January 10, that Prince William once accused their father, King Charles III, of allegedly having stories about his family “planted” in the British tabloids. Harry further alleged that the king, 74, had a part in leaking alleged stories about him and wife Meghan Markle.
The Archewell cofounder detailed an alleged conversation he had with William, 40, in which the Prince of Wales was “seething” over their father’s supposed involvement in stories getting out about his wife, Princess Kate, and their three children: Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
Harry claimed he learned that a “gung-ho” member of Charles’ team “devised and launched a new campaign of getting good press” for his father and stepmother Queen Consort Camilla. The positive message about the king came “at the expense of bad press” for both princes.
“They’ve done this to me for the last time,” William told Harry during their alleged phone call, adding that he “wasn’t going to take it anymore.”
The BetterUp CIO wrote that when William confronted their father, he tagged along for “moral support,” but things quickly turned sour.
“Pa instantly got upset. He began shouting that Willy was paranoid. We both were,” Harry recalled. “Just because we were getting bad press, and he was getting good, that didn’t mean his staff was behind it.”
The duke confessed that although Charles dismissed the boys, he felt it was a win as it brought him and William closer together — or so he thought. William allegedly “shifted all of his rage” onto Harry in the aftermath.
“I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family,” the Invictus Games founder said in his ITV interview on Sunday. “Nothing of what I’ve done in this book or otherwise has ever been [done with] any intention to harm them or hurt them. The truth is something that I need to rely on.”
Harry insisted that he wants to repair his strained relationships with both William and Charles but admitted he doesn’t currently “recognize” them.
When it comes to forgiveness, the veteran noted that “forgiveness is 100 percent a possibility” on his part. “I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back,” Harry concluded.
Spare comes out on Tuesday, January 10.
