The relationship between Prince Harry and his brother, Prince William, has deteriorated dramatically in recent years. And while the British Press seems bent on pinning the blame on Meghan Markle, according to Harry, those are more lies concocted by the tabloids and abetted by royal insiders.
In reality, he says his relationship with his brother was never what it appeared to the public. And it’s partly because of the royal motto of “never complain, never explain.
In an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Prince Harry revealed that the trauma and grief of his mother passing created a “wall” around the experience for him. He couldn’t process it, and couldn’t turn to anyone within his family for help.
The British royal family has a famous motto of “never complain, never explain.”
“Anyone who suffers from trauma, shock, grief, loss… which we all have, and all will… [is told] you have to put on a brave face,” he said.
“I was the kind of individual who whenever asked – when I was younger – ‘How are you feeling? Are you happy? Are you sad?’ [I would say] I’m fine. Fine was the easy get-out.”
He said that the public always assumed that he and his brother William would support each other through the grief. But the reality was very different. He couldn’t even hug anyone in his family.
He finally found refuge in the army.
“I spent ten years in the army. I originally joined only for three,” he said.
In the army, he was just Harry. Not a prince. He could mingle with people and not feel so different. And it kept him safe from the media and prying eyes for the first time in his life.
“I found my purpose,” he said. “That was an amazing place to be and an amazing community.”
Prince Harry Believes His Relationship with William Wouldn’t Have Gotten So Bad If Their Mother Was Still Alive
He also shared that, when he was younger, he used to believe that his mother was still alive and in hiding.
“Plotting and planning,” Harry said. “And then coming to get me and William out of there. Because it was unbearable for her.”
Writing his memoir and getting therapy had finally helped reduce the “wall” he had built around his mother’s death.
Colbert followed up by asking if he ever sought advice from his mother mentally or spiritually. Harry said he did.
“I have felt her [presence] more in the last two years than I have felt her in the last 30,” he said.
Prince Harry also mentioned an anecdote from his memoir Spare, where he and William were talking by Princess Diana’s grave one time and William told him how he used to feel their mother’s presence all the time and how it felt like she was now moving over to Harry. The memoir is full of more shocking revelations about his interactions with William.
Colbert pointed out that Princess Diana died when she was 36 and that the whole fiasco of him and Meghan fleeing England happened around the same age for him.
“January 2020 was when my wife and I said ‘Enough. We can’t cope, we can’t deal with this. We need to carve out something different.’ So that was an interesting overlap of time,” Harry said.
He also acknowledged the similarity between what he and Meghan experienced and what his mother went through at the hands of the royal family and the press.
Princess Diana had tried to run away as well. To remove herself from toxicity. And they had done the same too by moving to California and separating themselves from the bubble of monarchy in England.
“But not before trying to make it work,” Harry said. “Believe me, we tried. We’re still trying.”
