Prince William today put on a brave face amid more turmoil caused by Prince Harry who dropped another nuclear ‘truth bomb’ on the Royal Family during his new TV show about mental health with Oprah Winfrey.
The Duke of Sussex used his new Apple TV+ series to accuse his relatives of ‘total silence’ and ‘neglect’ when Meghan was suicidal, claiming his father Prince Charles made him ‘suffer’ as a child and insisting he would not be ‘bullied into silence’ when he alleged ‘The Firm’ ‘trapped’, smeared and dumped them after they emigrated to LA.
Today, 24 hours after he launched an eviscerating attack on the BBC over their treatment of Princess Diana, the Duke of Cambridge was in Scotland for a mental health event as experts said he will be ‘dismayed’ after Harry‘s latest brutal attack on the Royal Family left a ‘huge gulf’ between them.
Harry has said he hopes by ‘speaking his truth’ there can be ‘reconciliation and healing’ with his family, however, experts believe the chances of this are fading fast – especially because the ‘erratic’ Sussexes keep ignoring the Queen’s plea to deal with their rift privately.
William, who is unlikely to comment on his brother’s latest incendiary comments, visited Spartans FC’s Ainslie Park Stadium in Edinburgh to hear about initiatives in Scottish football that champion mental health ahead of the Scottish Cup Final at Hampden Park tomorrow.
Royal biographer Phil Dampier said Harry’s trip to unveil a statue of Princess Diana with his brother William on July 1 will now be in ‘grave doubt’, especially after the Duke of Sussex said London is a ‘trigger’ for his anxiety.
He said: ‘The royals will be dismayed and Charles and William will be tearing out what’s left of their hair. It just seems to be another day and another whinge. We need to be respectful of Harry’s mental health, of course, but you do wonder – when he is going to stop?’
Prince William today put on a brave face amid more turmoil caused by his ‘erratic’ brother Prince Harry who dropped another nuclear ‘truth bomb’ on the Royal Family to millions of people on TV
William issued an extraordinary attack on the BBC last night for deceiving his mother, ruining her life and helping to hasten her divorce, just four hours before Harry’s TV documentary was released causing more damage
Harry said his family tried to prevent him and Meghan from leaving when she was having suicidal thoughts, insisting they were ‘neglected’ and ‘trapped’ but have no regrets about quitting for LA
‘How much longer he can do this for?’, he told The Sun.
Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said said there is now ‘clearly a huge gulf between the Royal Family and the Sussexes’, while Harry’s biographer Angela Levin called his appearance ‘phoney and embarrassing’, claiming Harry is ‘still very unwell’ because he’s ‘stuck’ in the past and talking ‘so negatively’.
Mr Fitzwilliams said: ‘The Queen urged that the issues be dealt with privately as a family. Meghan and Harry don’t seem to be heeding that at all. The other problem is that when you’re dealing with a couple who are erratic, you don’t know what’s coming.
‘There is for the Royal Family a very, very real problem about the way the Sussexes are addressing their unhappiness. It’s about the way they speak of how unhappy they feel, how they felt trapped and how Meghan felt suicidal.
‘He also attacks his upbringing. But the way he chooses to open up, and how – it’s very difficult to know how you come to terms with this’.
In candid interviews with Oprah Winfrey on his new five-part AppleTV+ show, The Me You Can’t See, the Duke of Sussex said he and his wife felt abandoned by his relatives and this was one of their ‘biggest reasons’ for leaving for California last year.
He said: ‘Certainly now I will never be bullied into silence’, adding: ‘I thought my family would help, but every single ask, request, warning, whatever it is, just got met with total silence, total neglect. We spent four years trying to make it work. We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job. But Meghan was struggling.’
He added: ‘That feeling of being trapped within the family, 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 [Meghan] was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.’
Royal biographer Angela Levin says Prince Charles will be particularly hurt by Harry’s repeated criticism of his parenting, and Harry’s claims he was made to ‘suffer’.
He said: ‘Harry seems to be stuck in this and some of the things he said about his father, for example… that he didn’t have it very good as a child, therefore Harry and William must have it too.
‘I find that extremely hard to believe because Prince Charles did his absolute best. Maybe he wasn’t the best parent but I don’t know many people who are perfect parents.
She added: ‘I watched it all and I felt so embarrassed that he would go through this’.
The Apple TV series was released in full online just four hours after his brother Prince William issued an extraordinary attack on the BBC for ruining Princess Diana’s life after her Panorama interview with ‘rogue reporter’ Martin Bashir in 1995.
But despite a judge-led inquiry yesterday finally confirming their mother was deceived into doing the show her friends say began a chain of events leading directly to her death in Paris less than two years later, Harry launched yet another full-frontal attack on the Royal Family, who are private exasperated and upset about his constant ‘pot shots’ from across the Atlantic but are unable to respond publicly.
Today, as Harry launched another volley of attacks on the royals while insisting he wanted ‘reconciliation and healing’ with his family, he also claimed:
- Meghan told him she wanted to kill herself and had planned how to do it – but was only prevented from killing herself by concern over him ‘losing another woman in my life’;
- Harry claims the royal family tried to smear Meghan before their Oprah interview, saying she woke him up while crying into her pillow;
- Duke says he drank alcohol and took drugs to cope with his mother’s death, admitting he would drink a week’s worth of booze on a Friday or Saturday night to ‘feel less like he was feeling’. The Duke describes how he is still haunted by the sound of hooves after being forced to watch his mother’s coffin pass him on The Mall. He says at 12 he already knew: ‘I didn’t want the life’ ;
- He again blasted his father’s parenting, saying Charles informed him and William that they would suffer the same problems he did but he was determined to ‘break the cycle’. He also slammed Prince of Wales for ‘not making it right’ for his two sons when their mother died;
- Prince Harry reveals one of Archie’s first words was ‘Grandma’, along with crocodile and hydrate, and it made him ‘really sad’ because his late mother Diana ‘should be here’ to see her grandson grow up. But he said he thinks she would be ‘incredibly proud’ of him and says he feels her ‘presence’ with him in California living a life she ‘always wanted for herself’;
- Returning to London to attend Prince Philip‘s funeral last month was a ‘trigger’ for his anxiety, and a test of his ability to cope, showing how he meditates to banish negative thoughts as he was ‘worried and afraid’ about returning to the UK;
- Harry says he felt forced by the royals to go on a trip to Nepal and constant jet-setting became ‘hectic to the point of exhaustion’;
- Duke of Sussex reveals he did show with Oprah saying two most important issues on the planet are: Climate change and mental health;
Harry and Oprah made The Me You Can’t See to focus on mental illness and mental wellness, and features tearful interviews with Ms Winfrey, actress Glenn Close and pop superstar Lady Gaga who describes how she had a nervous breakdown was raped as a teenager and became pregnant.
But the five, one-hour shows, are dominated by Harry addressing the traumatic memories from his childhood, including the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, his use of drugs and alcohol as a crutch to cope with losing his mother and his decision to quit as a frontline royal last year and head for the US with his ‘struggling’ American wife.
The Duke of Sussex described how his Meghan first told him she wanted to kill herself, while six months pregnant with Archie, on the way to the Royal Albert Hall in London in January 2019, and how she spoke to him of the ‘practicalities of how she was going to end her life’. Harry said it reminded him of his mother’s final weeks in 1997, saying that it was when he was 12 and watching his mother’s coffin that he first thought: ‘I didn’t want the life’.
He said: ‘Meghan decided to share with me the suicidal thoughts and the practicalities of how she was going to end her life’, adding that she later decided against it because she didn’t want Harry to lose ‘another woman in my life’.
The Duke said ‘history was repeating itself’, because Princess Diana was with Dodi Fayed, who was Egyptian by birth, when she died in 1997, saying there was a real fear that he would lose Meghan too.
He told Oprah: ‘My mother was chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone who wasn’t white. And now look what’s happened. And it all comes back to the same people, the same business model, the same industry,’ he said. He added: ‘They’re not going to stop until she dies. It’s incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life’. Harry doesn’t name who is out to kill Meghan, but it is believed he is talking the media.
Accusing his own family of briefing against them, he said: ‘Before the Oprah interview had aired, because of their headlines and that combined effort of The Firm and the media to smear her, I was woken up in the middle of the night to her [Meghan] crying in her pillow – because she doesn’t want to wake me up because I’m already carrying too much. That’s heartbreaking. I held her. We talked. She cried and she cried and she cried.’
The Duke binged on alcohol and drugs to cope with the death of his mother, saying that being in London is a ‘trigger’ for his ‘anxiety’, and describes how how he is still haunted by the ‘sound of the horse’s hooves going along The Mall’ as his mother’s coffin passed him, slamming Prince Charles for ‘not making it right’ for his two sons.
Harry also used the five-part renew his criticisms of his father’s parenting, and how the Queen had also brought up Charles, insisting he had to quit as a frontline royal to ‘break the cycle’.
He said: ‘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 going to be like that for you,’ Harry says, ‘That doesn’t make sense. Just because you suffered, that doesn’t mean your kids have to suffer. In fact, quite the opposite. If you suffered, do everything you can to make sure that whatever negative experiences you had, you can make it right for your kids.’
‘Isn’t this all about breaking the cycle?’ he asked, rhetorically. ‘Isn’t this all about making sure that history doesn’t repeat itself.’
Harry insisted he has ‘no regrets’ about his decision to emigrate to LA saying he believes Diana ‘helped me get here’ and that Meghan’s insistence he went into therapy has ‘equipped me to be able to take on anything’, including ‘reconciliation and healing’ with his British family.
At one point he speaks to a therapist and is filmed having a form of therapy known as EMDR – known as Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. Harry is seen comforting himself with a series of movements such as closing his eyes, crossing his arms and calming his breathing while remembering traumatic events in his past.
Promoting it on Good Morning America today his ‘services to others’ had helped him to heal, adding: ‘The best we can all do collectively is to continue to talk and share stories that are relatable to people all around the world’.
Prince Harry carries out movements such as crossing his arms while remembering events in his past during therapy, he believes has saved him
Prince Harry has revealed his sadness that his son Archie will never get to meet his late mother, Princess Diana, claiming that her name was among the youngster’s first words. Pictured, a shot of Archie and Meghan on the beach from the documentary in previously unseen footage
In candid interviews with Oprah Winfrey on his new show, The Me You Can’t See, he said: ‘I thought my family would help, but every single ask, request, warning, whatever, it is just got met with total silence, total neglect
Harry says he and Meghan were bullied and trapped by the Royal Family who tried to stop them leaving for America
Harry’s candid interviews with The Me You Can’t See is going to cause more tensions with the Royal Family, who were braced for another attack overnight.
But they may not have been ready for the amount of criticism he hands out in the five-part series, with Harry telling his co-host and co-producer Oprah Winfrey that his relatives trapped, smeared and abandoned him and Meghan. But he said would ‘never be bullied into silence’ in the future.
He did not go to his family when Meghan felt suicidal because he was ashamed the situation had got ‘that bad’ and also suspected the royals would not have been able to help.
The duke said: ‘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.
‘Certainly now I will never be bullied into silence.’
In the candid interviews, the prince discusses his failure to process the grief from the death of his mother; the helplessness he felt to protect her; his dependence on drugs and alcohol to numb the pain; his anxiety and sense of being trapped in the palace; his family’s refusal to help when Meghan felt suicidal and how therapy helped him ‘break the cycle.’
‘For me, therapy has equipped me to be able to take on anything,’ he said.
He says his family tried to prevent him and Meghan from leaving when she claims she was suicidal and admits to drinking and doing drugs in his 30s.
‘Eventually when I made that decision for my family, I was still told, ‘You can’t do this,’ Harry recounted to Oprah. ‘And it’s like, ‘Well how bad does it have to get until I am allowed to do this?’ She [Markle] was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.’
When asked if he has any regrets, he says it is not taking a stand earlier in his relationship with Meghan Markle, claiming she was only stopped from killing herself by concern over Harry’losing another woman in my life’.
The pair had been married for less than a year and she was pregnant with their son Archie when, in January 2019, she told him she was deeply depressed.
Markle first revealed the trauma of that night in her March interview with Winfrey.
‘She was completely sane, yet at the quiet of night, these thoughts woke her up,’ Harry said.
‘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 to be put in a position of losing another woman in my life — with a baby inside of her, our baby.’
Harry said that he did not know how to handle her confession.
‘I’m somewhat ashamed of the way that I dealt with them,’ he said.
‘And of course, because of the system that we were in and the responsibilities and the duties that we had, we had a quick cuddle and then we had to get changed to jump in a convoy with a police escort and drive to the Royal Albert Hall for a charity event. 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 going to go’ because just imagine the stories that come from that.’
The prince, whose new series airs on Apple TV+ from May 20, told Winfrey he feared ‘history repeating itself’ after he began dating Markle , and was reminded of his mother being pursued to her death while she was dating ‘someone who wasn’t white’.
Diana, the princess of Wales, died in 1997 alongside Egyptian film producer Dodi Al Fayed, who she had been dating for several months.
Harry said he felt there were parallels in their stories when he followed in his mother’s footsteps and began dating a person of color.
‘My mother was chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone who wasn’t white,’ he said.
‘And now look what’s happened.
‘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.’
Speaking on GMA today, Harry promoted his new show and said: ‘It’s true for Oprah, its been true for me, starting the Invictus Games, to create something, to watch other people heal is part of our healing process’
Experts have said they now expect Harry to talk about his family again and his and his wife’s decision to quit as frontline royals in the upcoming documentary
Footage shown in the clip shows William (second left) and Harry (right) as they grieved for their mother Diana, with the Duke of Sussex saying the sound of hooves still haunts him
In the candid interview, the prince discusses his failure to process the grief from the death of his mother; the helplessness he felt when he struggled to protect her; and his dependence on drugs and alcohol to numb the pain.
He spoke of his anxiety and sense of being trapped in the palace, and his family’s refusal to help when Meghan felt suicidal.
He said therapy helped him ‘break the cycle.’
‘For me, therapy has equipped me to be able to take on anything,’ he said.
He says his family tried to prevent him and Meghan from leaving when she was suicidal and admits to drinking and doing drugs in his 30s.
‘Eventually when I made that decision for my family, I was still told, ‘You can’t do this,’ Harry told Winfrey.
‘And it’s like, ‘Well how bad does it have to get until I am allowed to do this?’
‘She [Markle] was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.’
When asked if he has any regrets, he says it is not taking a stand earlier in his relationship with Markle.
Harry told Winfrey that the trauma from his childhood ran deep.
‘I always wanted to be normal, as opposed to being Prince Harry, just being Harry,’ he says.
‘It was a puzzling life and, 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. My brother in the car as well, and my mother driving and being chased by three, four, five mopeds with paparazzi on.’
He said that his mother was vulnerable, exposed, and given no support.
‘She was almost unable to drive because of the tears, there was no protection,’ he recalled.
‘One of the feelings that come up is helplessness. Being too young, being a guy too young to be able to help a woman, in this case, your mother.
‘And that happened every single day until the day she died.’
The 36-year-old, who began dating Markle in 2016 and married her in 2018, said that he has been seeing a therapist for the past four years.
He told Winfrey that he found it incredibly beneficial, and the process helped him deal with the trauma of his mother’s death.
He explained that he simply tried to push his mother from his mind.
‘I don’t want to think about her, because if I think about her then it’s going to bring up the fact that I can’t bring her back and it’s just going to make me sad,’ he said.
‘What’s the point in thinking about something sad, what’s the point of thinking about someone that you’ve lost and you’re never going to get back again.
‘And I just decided not to talk about it.’
In his 20s and early 30s the prince self-medicated with alcohol and drugs, he has revealed.
‘Towards my late 20s, I was starting to ask questions of should I really be here? That was when I suddenly started going, ‘You can’t keep hiding from this.”
The Queen smiles during a virtual audience to receive His Excellency Lim Tuan Kuan, the High Commissioner for the Republic of Singapore today as her grandson launched yet another attack on the royals
He said his family could not understand his attitude, and his need to deal with the grief.
‘Family members have said just play the game and your life will be easier,’ Harry told Winfrey.
‘But I have a hell of a lot of my mum in me. I feel as though I am outside of the system but I’m still stuck there.
‘The only way to free yourself and break out is to tell the truth.’
He said that the attention he and his wife get ‘makes my blood boil’.
The prince explained: ‘We get followed. Photographed, chased, harassed. The clicking of cameras and the flashes of the cameras makes my blood boil.
‘It makes me angry and takes me back to what happened to my mom and what I experienced as a kid.
‘Not just traditional media, but also social media platforms as well. I felt completely helpless.’
Meghan told Harry HOW she was going to kill herself while six months pregnant
Prince Harry has told Oprah Winfrey that his wife Meghan Markle was only prevented from killing herself by concern over him ‘losing another woman in my life’.
In his new docuseries, The Me You Can’t See, Harry opens up about the night Markle told him she was suicidal.
The pair had been married for less than a year and she was pregnant with their son Archie when, in January 2019, she told him she was deeply depressed.
Markle first revealed the trauma of that night in her March interview with Winfrey.
‘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 to be put in a position of losing another woman in my life — with a baby inside of her, our baby,’ he said.
Harry and Meghan are pictured on January 16, 2019 – the night she told him she was suicidal
‘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.’
Harry said that he did not know how to handle her confession.
‘I’m somewhat ashamed of the way that I dealt with them,’ he said.
‘And of course, because of the system that we were in and the responsibilities and the duties that we had, we had a quick cuddle and then we had to get changed to jump in a convoy with a police escort and drive to the Royal Albert Hall for a charity event. 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 going to go’ because just imagine the stories that come from that.’
He said that the night was, for him, a revelation. He realized that they could not continue the way they were.
‘While 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,’ Harry said.
‘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 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 into his eyes, wondering whether my wife is going to end up like my mother and I’m going to have to look after him myself.’
Prince Harry says Royals tried to STOP him and Meghan leaving after ‘she was going to end her life’
But, the prince said, his family tried to stop him and Meghan from leaving, even as she was supposedly feeling suicidal.
‘That feeling of being trapped within the family, 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 [Markle] was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.’
He said his biggest regret was not taking a stand earlier in his relationship with Markle, claiming a barrage of attacks on her won’t stop ‘until she dies.
‘It’s incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life,’ Harry said in the interview with Oprah. ‘Like the list is growing, and it all comes back to the same people, the same business model, the same industry.’
Harry claims the royal family tried to SMEAR Meghan before Oprah interview
Prince Harry has claimed the royal family tried to smear Meghan before her interview with Oprah Winfrey, said The Firm is still ‘trying to control the narrative’ and that he has ‘no regrets’ since ‘speaking his truth’.
In a series of interviews on Apple TV’s The Me You Can’t See, the Duke of Sussex also accused the Royal Family of ‘total silence’ and ‘total neglect’ when Meghan was suicidal, claiming his father Prince Charles made him ‘suffer’ as a child.
He said: ‘Before the Oprah interview had aired, because of their headlines and that combined effort of The Firm and the media to smear her, I was woken up in the middle of the night to her [Meghan] crying in her pillow – because she doesn’t want to wake me up because I’m already carrying too much.
‘That’s heartbreaking. I held her. We talked. She cried and she cried and she cried.’
Prince Harry said: ‘Before the Oprah interview had aired, because of their headlines and that combined effort of The Firm and the media to smear her, I was woken up in the middle of the night to her [Meghan] crying in her pillow’ (pictured: Harry and Meghan being interviewed by Oprah in March this year)
The Duke said he and his wife felt abandoned by his relatives and this was one of their ‘biggest reasons’ for leaving for California last year, insisting he had ‘no regrets’ about his decision.
He added: ‘That feeling of being trapped within the family, 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 [Meghan] was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.’
Prince Harry says he believed his ‘compassionate’ Oprah interview would ‘leave door open to reconciliation’ with his family
Prince Harry has claimed he and Meghan Markle believed their explosive Oprah Winfrey interview would help reconcile them with the Royal Family – and said his wife was so distressed ahead of the programme airing she sobbed through the night.
The Duke of Sussex, 36, who is currently living in his $14 million mansion in California having stepped back from royal duty, opened up about his decision to do the interview during his new documentary series The Me You Can’t See.
In the fifth series of the episode, Prince Harry described the bombshell discussion as ‘real and authentic’, saying: ‘I like to think that we were able to speak truths in the most compassionate way possible, therefore leaving an opening for reconciliation and healing.’
He continued: ‘Before the Oprah interview had aired, because of the combined efforts of The Firm and the media to smear her, I was woken up in the middle of the night to her crying into her pillow because she doesn’t want to wake me up because I’m already carrying too much. That’s heartbreaking.’
The couple were accused of ‘blowing up the royal family’ after the interview, in which they laid bare the extent of their rift with the Queen and other senior royals and accused The Firm of racism, sent shock waves around the world.
During the programme, the Duke could be seen discussing the decision to do the Oprah Winfrey interview.
Prince Harry described Megxit as ‘an awakening’, saying: ‘The media is desperately trying to control the narrative because they know if they lose it, the truth will come out.’
He continued: ‘The interview was about being real and authentic. And hopefully sharing an experience which we know to be incredibly relatable to people around the world, despite our unique privileged position.’
The Duke went on to discuss waking up to find Meghan crying into her pillow the night before the Oprah interview aired in February.
He said she ‘hadn’t wanted to wake him’ because he was already ‘carrying too much.’
Harry continued: ‘I held her, we talked, she cried and cried and cried.’
Prince Harry shown closing his eyes in footage from EDMR session that has ‘freed him’
Prince Harry has revealed he becomes ‘tense and update’ whenever he visits Britain, during a therapy session filmed on camera in which he said: ‘London is a trigger.’
The Duke of Sussex said in his new mental health documentary series with Oprah Winfrey that he has ‘always felt worried’ for most of his life when he flies back to London, but only became aware of this after doing therapy.
Appearing on Apple TV’s The Me You Can’t See, Harry told how he remembered ‘everything felt tense’ when he travelled to London ‘because of what happened to my mum, and because of what I experienced and what I saw’.
The Duke, who co-created the documentary, has addressed traumatic memories from his childhood, including the death of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, and the impact of social media on him as well as his wife Meghan.
He was filmed having a form of therapy known as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), which is a treatment technique for helping someone come to terms with traumatic experiences. This saw Harry carry out a series of movements such as closing his eyes and crossing his arms while remembering events in his past.
Harry’s therapy session was filmed and shown on the new Apple TV documentary series The Me You Can’t See
The Duke, who now lives in an £11million mansion in Montecito, California, carried out the therapy via videolink with Sanja Oakley, a UK-based psychotherapist who used to be a trauma specialist for London Underground.
Prince Harry told the documentary, released today: ‘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 stuff 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.’
He told London-based Ms Oakley: ‘Happens every time. I can’t remember the first time it happened, I can just remember the feeling, anxiety, like a hollow empty feeling almost of nervousness, is it fear? Everything feels tense.
‘It’s being the hunted, and being helpless and knowing that you can’t do anything about it. There is no escape. There is no way out of this.’
Speaking to Oprah in episode three about his work with Ms Oakley, he added: ‘Wherever I could I wanted to understand more about what was going on and why my nervous system was reacting the way that it was.
‘I quickly established that if this relationship was going to work then I was going to have to deal with my past, because there was anger there, and it wasn’t anger at her, it was just anger, and she recognised it, she saw it.
‘Well, so how do I fix this? And it was a case of needing to go back to the past, go back to the point of trauma, deal with it, process it, and then move forward.
‘Having now done therapy for four and bit years, five years now, for me it’s all about prevention.
‘That doesn’t mean we have to speak to them every single day, but to have someone that can help guide us and create that awareness in our own life to when we might be feeling pain and how to get out of that and what the tools are available to us on any given day to make sure that it doesn’t snowball into something bigger.
‘EMDR is always something that I’ve wanted to try and that was one of the varieties of different forms of healing or curing that I was willing to experiment with.
‘And I never would have been open to that had I not put in the work and the therapy that I’ve done over the years.’
Harry says he was ‘worried and afraid’ to return to UK for Philip’s funeral
For Harry, returning to London to attend Prince Philip‘s funeral last month meant once more facing a place where he felt trapped and hunted by cameras. It would be a test of his ability to cope with the anxiety that was bubbling up again.
‘I was worried about it, I was afraid,’ Harry told The Associated Press during a recent joint interview with Oprah Winfrey to promote a mental-health series they co-created and co-executive produced for Apple TV+.
He was able to work through any trepidation using coping skills learned in therapy.
‘It definitely made it a lot easier, but the heart still pounds,’ said Harry, the Duke of Sussex and grandson of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her late husband Philip.
In ‘The Me You Can’t See,’ which debuted Thursday night on Apple’s streaming service, Harry reveals that he first saw a therapist approximately four years ago at the encouragement of then-girlfriend Meghan. They’d had an argument and she recognized his anger seemed misplaced.
Winfrey’s existing partnership with Apple created a rare opportunity to reach the vast number of people who use the company’s devices, Harry said.
‘If that’s in a billion pockets on a billion screens, then maybe we can really start a global conversation about this,’ he said.
Winfrey recalls some of her own childhood traumas in ‘The Me You Can’t See.’ In addition to her and Harry’s stories, the series also features accounts from both regular people and celebrities including Lady Gaga and Glenn Close, who speak candidly about their own experiences with mental illness.
Winfrey said Harry pushed to present a global perspective. ‘This has got to be a world thing and not just a U.S. thing,’ she recounted him saying, adding: ‘I think we’ve accomplished that really well.’
Harry jokes he’s ‘slowly catching up’ to Winfrey’s decades of inner-work and encouragement of others to do the same whether on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ or her ‘Super Soul Sunday’ interviews on OWN. Even Winfrey said she’s had a lot to learn.
‘I have dealt personally with one of the girls from my school (Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa), who had schizophrenia,’ Winfrey said. ‘Only after hearing the doctor say that ‘it’s a diagnosis. It’s not your life, it’s not who you are,’ that I had my great awakening about it. … ‘That is not you. You are a person who has a diagnosis of schizophrenia.’ That is powerful.’
Prince Harry reveals one of Archie’s first words was ‘Grandma’ thanks to pictures of Diana
Prince Harry has revealed his sadness that his son Archie will never get to meet his late mother, Princess Diana, claiming that her name was among the youngster’s first words.
In his new mental health series with Oprah Winfrey The Me You Can’t See, the Duke of Sussex said: ‘I got a photo of her in his nursery, and it was one of the first words that he said — apart from ‘mama’, ‘papa’, it was then ‘grandma’. Grandma Diana.
‘It’s the sweetest thing, but at the same time, it makes me really sad because she should be here.’
The doting father also released new footage of his toddler son playing on the beach and on the swings at home.
In one clip in the programme believed to have been taken in the grounds of the Santa Barbara mansion, the toddler can be seen sitting on a swing with his back facing the camera, while another person, believed to be Prince Harry, can be seen swinging alongside him.
Prince Harry has revealed his sadness that his son Archie will never get to meet his late mother, Princess Diana, claiming that her name was among the youngster’s first words. Pictured, a shot of Archie and Meghan on the beach from the mental health interview
Prince Harry, 35, and Meghan Markle, 39, who now live in Montecito, California, previously revealed their son Archie’s favourite word is ‘hydrate’ (Archie pictured on the beach with Meghan in a shot shown on the Apple TV+ series)
Playful Archie bends down to walk underneath Prince Harry’s legs in a sweet beach moment
Harry reveals he would ‘pour with sweat’ due to stress of public events
Prince Harry has said the stress of going to public events would make him pour with sweat, saying ‘One bead of sweat feels like the whole face is pouring down’.
The Duke of Sussex disclosed his nerves at occasions he had attended as a working Royal and how he would feel as his face was bright red and he was ‘two or three degrees warmer than everybody else’.
He said his problem was so serious at functions it would take finding someone else who was similarly nervous and sweating to calm his nerves.
The Royal revealed the symptoms of his anxiety as part of his mental health series with chat show queen Oprah Winfrey.
He said: ‘Every time I put a suit and tie on and having to do the role, to go ‘Right, game face’ look in the mirror, right let’s go.
‘Before I left the house I was pouring with sweat, my heart rate was racing. I was in fight or flight mode.
‘Freaking out every single time I jumped in the car, every single time I would see a camera.
‘I would just start sweating. I would feel as though my body temperate was two or three degrees warmer than everybody else in the room.
‘I would convince myself that my face was bright red and therefore everybody could see how I was feeling, but nobody would know why.
‘So it was embarrassing. You get in your head about it and then you’re just like ‘everybody is looking at me’. One bead of sweat feels like the whole face is pouring down.
‘Just sweating and then all in my head, this is so embarrassing, what are they thinking of me? They have no idea, I can’t tell them.
‘Everywhere I go, every time I meet someone, it’s almost like I am being drained of this energy, picking up on other people’s emotion, finally I would bump into someone more than me and I would stop, be able to speak to them and everything would calm down and I could move on again.’
Harry says he took alcohol and drugs to cope with mother’s death
Prince Harry, pictured above, has said the trauma of his mother’s death led him to use alcohol and drugs to ‘mask’ his emotions and to ‘feel less like I was feeling’
Prince Harry has said the trauma of his mother’s death led him to use alcohol and drugs to ‘mask’ his emotions and to ‘feel less like I was feeling’.
The Duke of Sussex was just 12 when Diana, Princess of Wales, died in August 1997 in a car crash while being pursued by the press in Paris.
In the first three episodes of Apple TV’s The Me You Can’t See, the royal addressed traumatic memories from his childhood including the moment he was famously photographed with his brother, father, uncle and grandfather walking behind Diana’s coffin at her funeral.
The 36-year-old told his series co-host Oprah Winfrey: ‘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.’
The royal said he would drink a week’s worth of alcohol on a Friday or Saturday night ‘not because I was enjoying it but because I was trying to mask something’.
‘It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me. (I was) showing one tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing: This was my mum – you never even met her.’
The series focuses on mental health, with Harry telling Winfrey the trauma of the loss caused him to suffer anxiety and severe panic attacks from ages 28 to 32.
‘I was just all over the place mentally,’ he said.
‘Every time I put a suit on and tie on … having to do the role, and go, ‘right, game face’, look in the mirror and say, ‘let’s go’. Before I even left the house I was pouring with sweat. I was in fight or flight mode.’
Harry claims Charles told him he would ‘suffer with the same problems as him’
Prince Charles and Prince Harry attend the ‘Our Planet’ global premiere at Natural History Museum on April 4, 2019 in London, England
Prince Harry again blasted his father’s parenting, claiming in a new mental health documentary series with Oprah Winfrey that his father told him he would suffer the same problems he did.
Prince Charles would allegedly tell his son to ‘play the game’ and his life would improve, Harry recounts in Apple TV’s The Me You Can’t See while discussing traumatic memories from his childhood – including the death of his mother Diana.
‘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 going to be like that for you’,’ Prince Harry says in the new documentary.
‘That doesn’t make sense. Just because you suffered 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 you had, that you can make it right for your kids,’ he says.
Prince Harry, 36, suggests to Winfrey that he didn’t want to ‘play the game.’
‘I’ve got a hell of a lot of my mum in me. The only way to free yourself and break out is to tell the truth,’ he says.
Harry says Diana was ‘chased to death while in a relationship with someone who wasn’t white’ and feared ‘history repeating itself’ with Meghan
Diana, the princess of Wales, died in 1997 alongside Egyptian film producer Dodi Al Fayed, who she had been dating for several months
Prince Harry says his mother was ‘chased to death while in a relationship with someone who wasn’t white’ and feared ‘history repeating itself’ with wife Meghan.
The Duke of Sussex made the startling revelation in a series of interviews with Oprah Winfrey on his new AppleTV+ show, The Me You Can’t See.
Diana, the princess of Wales, died in 1997 alongside Egyptian film producer Dodi Al Fayed, who she had been dating for several months.
Harry said he felt there were parallels in their stories when he followed in his mother’s footsteps and began dating a person of color.
‘My mother was chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone who wasn’t white,’ he said.
‘And now look what’s happened.
‘You want to talk about history repeating itself, they’re not going to 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.’
Harry admitted he wished he had called out racism when he first started dating Meghan, but said he would no longer accept it.
‘My biggest regret is not making more of a stance earlier on in my relationship with my wife and calling out the racism when I did,’ he said.
Harry says the royals forcing him to go to Nepal and constant jet-setting led to ‘burnout’
Prince Harry has moaned about his jet set lifestyle when he was in his 20s and said being the Royals’ ‘yes man’ to fly abroad led to a ‘burnout’.
The Duke of Sussex said his life ‘became really hectic but to the point of exhaustion’ during his second explosive sit down with Oprah Winfrey.
The 36-year-old complained about his family sending him to Nepal in 2016 and said he felt like he was their ‘yes man’ for foreign jaunts.
The comments came as Harry and Oprah spoke in detail about their histories of trauma and anxiety in The Me You Can’t See on Apple TV.
The Prince dropped another series of nuclear ‘truth bombs’ on his family and accused them of ‘total silence’ and ‘neglect’ when Meghan was suicidal.
The 36-year-old complained about his family sending him to Nepal in 2016 and said he felt like he was their ‘yes man’ for foreign jaunts
In the second episode the Duke is onscreen sitting opposite Oprah as they talk about growing up as a member of ‘The Firm’.
Prince Harry told her: ‘Towards my late 20s everything became really hectic for me, but to the point of exhaustion.
‘I was travelling 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 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.’
He added: ‘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.
‘I knew that if I didn’t do therapy and fix myself, that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with.’
Meghan Markle pushed Harry to get therapy as he feared he would lose her
Prince Harry revealed an argument with then-girlfriend Meghan Markle was what pushed him to get therapy.
In candid interviews with Oprah Winfrey on his new Apple TV show, The Me You Can’t See, the Duke of Sussex, 36, said he realised he could ‘lose the woman he could see spending the rest of his life with’ if he didn’t ‘fix’ himself.
Harry told how he had tried drugs and alcohol to numb his pain, not realising at the time that was what he was doing, and when people close to him told him to seek help, he would say he did not need help.
It wasn’t until he met Meghan, he said in the second episode, that he decided he needed help. He’s now been in therapy for four years.
‘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 explained.
Prince Harry revealed an argument with then-girlfriend Meghan Markle was what pushed him to get therapy
‘I knew that if I didn’t do the therapy and fix myself that I was going to lose this woman who I could see spending the rest of my life with.
‘When she said, ‘I think you need to see someone,’ it was in reaction to an argument that we had. And in that argument not knowing about it, I reverted back to 12-year-old Harry.’
Prior to seeking help, Harry told how he simply tried to push his mother from his mind.
‘I don’t want to think about her, because if I think about her then it’s going to bring up the fact that I can’t bring her back and it’s just going to make me sad,’ he said.
‘What’s the point in thinking about something sad, what’s the point of thinking about someone that you’ve lost and you’re never going to get back again. And I just decided not to talk about it.’
He said the moment he started therapy, his therapist told him that during his argument with his girlfriend, it sounded like he was ‘reverting to 12-year-old Harry’.
‘I felt somewhat ashamed and defensive. Like, ‘How dare you? You’re calling me a child’. And she goes, ‘No, I’m not calling you a child. I’m expressing sympathy and empathy for you for what happened to you when you were a child. You never processed it. You were never allowed to talk about it and all of a sudden now it’s coming up in different ways as projection’.
‘That was the start of a learning journey for me. I became aware that I’d been living in a bubble within this family, within this institution and I was sort of almost trapped in a thought process or a mindset.’
‘Angry’ Prince Harry reveals he’s ‘haunted by the sound of horses hooves’ on The Mall at Diana’s funeral
Prince William and Prince Harry at Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997. Harry explained he ‘didn’t want to share the grief of her death with the world’, was haunted by the sound of hooves
Prince Harry has revealed he didn’t understand the public outpouring of emotion following Princess Diana‘s death and that he didn’t want to share his grief with the world.
Speaking on The Me You Can’t See, his new mental health series with Oprah Winfrey, The Duke of Sussex added that he’s ‘haunted’ by the sound of horses hooves clacking down The Mall at the Princess of Wales’ funeral and that he was ‘outside of his body’ while following his mother’s coffin.
‘When my mum was taken away from me at the age of 12, just before my 13th birthday, I didn’t want the [royal] life. Sharing the grief of my mother’s death with the world,’ he said.
‘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 one tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing. I thought, ‘This is my mum. You never even met her.”
‘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,’ he explained as footage of Diana taking Harry to school flashed on the screen.
Prince Harry says he feels Diana’s presence with him in California
Prince Harry revealed he thinks Princess Diana would be ‘incredibly proud’ of him and says he feels her ‘presence’ with him in California.
Speaking candidly in new AppleTV+ series The Me You Can’t See, Harry said: ‘I’m living the life that she wanted to live for herself. Living the life that she wanted us to be able to live.’
The Duke of Sussex, 36, said he believes his late mother ‘helped him get here’ and that he’s ‘never felt her presence more’ than he has over the last year living in California with Meghan, 39, and Archie, two.
Prince Harry spoke about the important role his mother continues to play in his life, revealing Archie has a photo of Diana in his bedroom and that one of his first words was ‘grandma’.
Harry also said he thought Diana was ‘chased to death’ and that he could see clear parallels between her and Meghan before their decision to leave the UK.
The Duke of Sussex, 36, said he believes his late mother ‘helped him get here’ and that he’s ‘never felt her presence more’ than he has over the last year living in California with Meghan, 39, and Archie, two. Pictured, with William and Diana in London in 1995
The couple now live in a mansion in Montectio, California, and are expecting a daughter together this summer.
Reflecting on the move, he said: ‘Making this move was really scary. At every possible opportunity the forces working against us tried to make it impossible. Did I expect to find ourselves in this situation so quickly? No. I think we’ve done a really good job.
‘I have no regrets. It’s really sad but I have no regrets at all because now I’m at a place where I think I should have been four years ago…
‘Now we’ve got a beautiful little boy who keeps us busy, keeps us running around, he makes us laugh every day. We’ve got two dogs. And another little baby girl on the way. I never dreamt that.
‘I have no doubt my Mum would be incredibly proud of me. I’m living the life that she wanted to live for herself. Living the life that she wanted us to be able to live.
‘Not only do I know that she’s incredibly proud of me, but that she’s helped me get here. And I’ve never felt her presence more than I have over the last year. I wish she could have met Meghan. I wish she was around for Archie.’
Lady Gaga details being raped by a producer and left pregnant aged 19
Lady Gaga says she had a ‘total psychotic break’ when she was sexually assaulted at the age of 19 by a music producer and ‘dropped off pregnant on a street corner’.
The singer, 35, spoke about the traumatic event during an appearance on Prince Harry and Oprah’s new Apple TV+ mental health docuseries, The Me You Can’t See.
Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, recalled: ‘I was 19 years old, and I was working in the business, and a producer said to me, ‘Take your clothes off’.’
Heartbreaking: Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta, recalled: ‘I was 19 years old and a producer said to me, ‘Take your clothes off’ (pictured in 2005 aged 19)
‘And I said ‘no’. And I left, and they told me they were going to burn all of my music. And they didn’t stop. They didn’t stop asking me, and I just froze and … I don’t even remember.’
Gaga, who has never mentioned the producer’s name for fear of seeing him again, said she blacked out amid the assault, and purged herself by being physically sick for an extended period as a way of coping with the pain.
‘I was sick for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks after, and I realized that it was the same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner,’ she said.
She said she was ‘at [her] parents’ house amid the illness because she was ‘being abused’ and ‘locked away in a studio for months.’
Gaga said the incident left her scarred physically and emotionally, which lingers to this day.
The singer said a doctor advised her to see a psychiatrist for her chronic pain, leading to her diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
‘I had a total psychotic break, and for a couple years, I was not the same girl,’ Gaga said. ‘The way that I feel when I feel pain was how I felt after I was raped. I’ve had so many MRIs and scans where they don’t find nothing. But your body remembers.’
Glenn Close, 74, says growing up in a cult caused all her relationships to fail
Glenn Close has revealed the ‘devastating’ impact of growing up in a cult.
Making an emotional appearance on Prince Harry and Oprah’s new Apple TV+ mental health docuseries, The Me You Can’t See, the 74-year-old actress spoke candidly about her childhood trauma.
When she was still a child Glenn’s late father Dr William Taliaferro Close became enamoured with a conservative new religious group Moral Re-Armament.
Eventually he moved the family to the organization’s headquarters in Switzerland, effectively cutting Glenn off from the life she once knew.
Candid: Glenn Close revealed the ‘devastating’ impact of growing up in a cult in an emotional appearance on Prince Harry and Oprah’s new Apple TV+ mental health docuseries
Speaking about her traumatic experience on the show, Glenn said: ‘I was in this group called MRA and it was basically a cult, everyone spouted the same things and there’s a lot of rules, a lot of control.
‘Because of how we were raised, anything you thought you’d do for yourself was considered selfish. We never went on any vacations or had any collective memories of stuff other than what we went through, which was really awful.’
Detailing the impact this had on her mental health, Glenn explained: ‘We were so broken up. It’s astounding that something you go through at such a young stage in your life still has such a potential to be destructive.
‘I think that’s childhood trauma, because of the devastation, emotional and psychological, of the cult.’
Prince Harry ‘addresses Charles direct’ when discussing how ‘history was repeating itself’ with Meghan and shows gestures of mimed aggression when expressing ‘regret for not calling out racism earlier’, body language expert claims
Prince Harry ‘addressed Prince Charles directly’ and showed gestures of ‘mimed aggression’ when discussing how ‘history was repeating itself’ with his wife Meghan Markle during his new docuseries, a body language expert has claimed.
During The Me You Can’t See, the Apple TV+ show he co-produced with Oprah Winfrey, the Duke of Sussex, 36, claimed Prince Charles made him ‘suffer’ as a child – something royal commentators have claimed will ‘hurt’ the Prince of Wales deeply.
He also accused the Royal Family of ‘total silence’ and ‘total neglect’ when Meghan was suicidal, adding: ‘Before the Oprah interview had aired, because of their headlines and that combined effort of The Firm and the media to smear her, I was woken up in the middle of the night to her [Meghan] crying in her pillow – because she doesn’t want to wake me up because I’m already carrying too much.’
Harry admitted he wished he had ‘called out the racism’ when he first started dating Meghan, but said he would no longer accept it after fearing ‘losing another woman’ in his life. He also allowed cameras to film him undergoing an ‘extraordinary’ therapy session, during which he received ‘eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing’ (EMDr) treatment for anxiety attacks he said are triggered every time he flies into Britain.
Speaking to FEMAIL, body language expert Judi James said she observed a ‘powerful’ body language moment where Harry appeared to be addressing his father directly.
Prince Harry ‘addressed Prince Charles directly’ and showed gestures of ‘mimed aggression’ when discussing how ‘history was repeating itself’ with his wife Meghan Markle during his new docuseries, a body language expert has claimed
‘We see three strong sets of emotional reveal from Harry in this first documentary about mental health. First is the unmasked version with signals of sadness and vulnerability, then the very angry, resentful version with eye-narrowing and lip-jutting and lastly the “adult, in control” version of Harry, who appears calmer and as something of a guru or therapist himself.’
She added: ‘There is a very powerful body language moment in this episode where Harry appears to be addressing his father Charles directly.
‘He begins by making comparisons between his mother’s fate and Meghan. When he asks himself about regrets in a rhetorical format he shows signs of anger again as he replies he regrets “not taking a stance earlier and calling out racism”.
‘His finger points in a stabbing gesture of mimed aggression and his blink rate increases. He makes comparisons to his mother’s circumstances using the pointing gestures and ending in a wry, mirthless laugh to suggest disbelief.
‘Harry’s hands stir in the air when he says it was “incredibly triggering to potentially lose another woman in my life” – and again the wry, understated smile of disbelief that history could repeat itself.
Judi said Harry makes comparisons to his mother’s circumstances using the pointing gestures and ending in a wry, mirthless laugh to suggest disbelief
‘He then says that it “comes back to the same people”, and Charles is shown on screen with his young son.
‘It is at this point that Harry appears to be “posting” his conversation directly at his father, even using the word “you” when he says “You chose”.’
When discussing his childhood and talking about his mother, Judi said Harry’s voice ‘deepens, softens and seems to crack as though he is near to tears’.
‘There is a micro-gesture of disgust as he wrinkles his nose at one point,’ she observed. ‘The angry Harry returns with Oprah now as he uses mime gestures like horses’ hooves to re-live the experience of Diana’s funeral. He re-lives his anger of the time here too, using pointing and stabbing gestures and with his eyes narrowing as he says “This is my mum”. His lower lip juts, his hands ball into fists and his blink rate becomes more rapid.’
Judi said there are some ‘subtle clues’ that suggest tension and anxiety within the prince, especially when he talks about his four years of therapy.
‘Harry becomes less assured at this point, fiddling with his wedding ring to suggest a desire to channel Meghan’s reassuring presence and speaking about himself in the third person – “for an individual who never thought they would need or do therapy” – rather than speaking personally.
‘Harry’s anger begins to become obvious here though as he mimes pushing away with both hands to describe how he was treated in the past.’
By the end of the series in episode five, Judi said we see Harry back in his ‘calm, adult power pose’, speaking to Oprah.
She observed that his ‘summary’ towards the end triggered new gestures ‘associated with self-calming or suppressing thoughts or emotions’.
‘He face-touches here, touching his lips in a self-comfort ritual before changing position to touch his face with his other hand. He also scratches his neck and plays with his wedding ring,’ Judi noted.
‘When he speaks he sounds on-message again, referring to his “awakening” and defining time via some invisible brick gestures that separate chunks of his past, present and future life into different themes.
‘There is huge emphasis here on his rubbing and fiddling with his wedding ring to suggest the support and comfort he gets from his wife and the pose and background imply a sense of reflective peace and solitude and found freedom with Meghan,’ Judi concluded
‘He places his finger to his lips and pauses when asked if he is still controlled by the media and then he rubs his lips to suggest mixed feelings of possible unease and a desire to self-comfort.’
When he discusses the couple’s previous explosive Oprah interview, Judi said Harry is ’emphatic’ that he ‘spoke the truth in the most compassionate way possible’ – despite many royal commentators claiming the Firm would be deeply hurt by their accusations of institutional racism and neglect.
It prompted the Queen to issue a statement after the programme aired, which stated: ‘The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan.
‘The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.’
‘Harry then uses mime gestures to mime a gap in front of his body as he describes leaving an “opening for reconciliation and healing”,’ Judi went on.
‘Harry is equally sharing and open when he speaks about how Meghan cried the night before the interview. He actually shares by miming the act and then miming the hug he gave her. His body language and his words are very emphatic here as he says she “cried and cried and cried”.
This revelation is followed by shots of Harry driving and sitting in a forest ‘reflectively’.
‘There is huge emphasis here on his rubbing and fiddling with his wedding ring to suggest the support and comfort he gets from his wife and the pose and background imply a sense of reflective peace and solitude and found freedom with Meghan,’ Judi concluded.
Duchess put on a brave facade but reached for her husband’s hands while he sat ‘stony-faced’ after smiling for the cameras, body language expert claims
Meghan Markle put on a brave face to mask her pain while Prince Harry gave away tell-tale signs of anxiety during their appearance at London‘s Royal Albert Hall, a body language expert claimed.
Harry and Meghan were seen sitting together as the lights went down at the concert in January 2019, before the Duchess started crying. Speaking to FEMAIL, Judi James said Meghan was able to mask what what we now know went on behind the scenes and appeared ‘gracious and elegant’.
‘She reaches for Harry’s hand frequently and when she sits she reaches for it and places it in both of her hands,’ Judi observed. ‘Harry’s facial expression does appear more telling. His eyes looks wide at times and he is seen sucking his lips in once the attention is off him, suggesting he is struggling with anxiety or some sort of pain or worry.
‘Like Meghan he appears keen to look animated and sociable when he is doing his job but his demeanour does seem to change to something a lot more serious when the lights are lowered.’
When Harry speaks about his wife in the docuseries, Judi said his gestures became ‘very emphatic, clear and precise’ before he got emotional when he described how she was feeling when she shared her suicidal thoughts with him.
‘He uses a pursed-finger hand to baton his messages and he uses that finger-pinch to draw vertical and horizontal lines in the air to be forensic with his words and memories,’ she explained.
‘He also starts to be overcome with emotion, tearing up with his voice cracking. He says that they only had time for a “quick cuddle” before having to go out and get on with their royal duties.’
During the series Harry revealed that it was Meghan who pushed him to get therapy during an argument to finally address the trauma he experienced after losing his mother when he was 12. Judi said Harry’s body language during this discussion suggested Meghan ‘really was the one who “save” him at this low point’.
‘He begins to fiddle with his wedding ring,’ she says. ‘Harry slows and becomes calmer when he speaks about Meghan and he appears to mime her side of their conversations, throwing his hands out palms-up to repeat her suggestion that “I think you need to see someone”.
‘Harry uses his body language to role-play both sides in the argument they had, using the open hands and calm of Meghan versus the self-protective fist-shapes as he first thinks “How dare you” about the thought he needed help. His palm-swipe appears to mimic her listing of his problems before he rubs his wedding ring again.’
Meghan first revealed the trauma of the night at the Royal Albert Hall in her March interview with Oprah.