Prince Harry has described how he can “never get out of the royal family”, but he doesn’t think it will ever be possible for him and the Duchess of Sussex to return to the UK as working royals.
In his latest TV interview to promote his autobiography, Spare, the Duke of Sussex continued to point the finger at Camilla, the Queen Consort, over allegations that he had been “sacrificed on her personal PR altar”.
When asked on Good Morning America if the couple could return to the royal flock, he said he didn’t think “it will ever be possible.”
“Even if there’s an arrangement or an agreement between me and my family, there’s this third party that will do whatever it takes to make sure that’s not possible,” he told host Michael Strahan, hinting he was referring to the media and competing royal press offices. “Doesn’t stop us from returning, just makes it unsurvivable.”
He said he believed his late mother would be heartbroken at the rift that had developed between him and his brother William, the Prince of Wales. “I think she would be sad… I think her heart would be broken.”
He insisted his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, was not upset that he wanted to step down as working king. “She knew what was going on. She knew how difficult it was. I don’t know if she was able to change it,” he said.
He added: “She never told me she was angry. I think she was sad it had come to this.”
Speaking of the royal family, he said: “I can never get out and I’m incredibly aware of my position. I am incredibly grateful for the life I have had and continue to live. But there’s no version of me that would ever be able to get out of it.”
Harry has attacked in several interviews what he claimed was Camilla’s attempts to “rehabilitate” her image after she was cast as the “third person” in his parents’ marriage. But he told Strahan he sympathizes with her too, saying she’s not an “evil stepmother.”
Strahan read an excerpt from Harry’s critical book on Camilla. “In a weird way, I actually wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she would be less dangerous if she were happy.”
Another excerpt reads, “I have complex feelings about winning over a stepparent who I thought recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar.”
When asked what Camilla was “doing” at the time, Harry replied, “I have a great deal of sympathy for her, you know. As she was the third person in my parents’ marriage, she had a reputation or image to rehabilitate. Whatever conversations were had, whatever deals or deals were made right at the beginning, she was made to believe that this would be the best way to do it.”
He said they hadn’t spoken to each other “in a long time” but were “perfectly comfortable” when they met. “She’s my stepmother,” he said. “I don’t see her as an evil stepmother. I see someone who has married into this institution and has done whatever it takes to improve their own reputation and image for their own sake.”
In a previous separate interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Harry had said Camilla’s willingness to develop relationships with the British press made her “dangerous” and “it left dead bodies in the streets”.
He told ABC he was “stunned” that public funding for safety for him and his family was withdrawn after he left the UK.
In his interview with ITV on Sunday, Harry denied that he and Meghan had called an unnamed member of the royal family a racist after asking what color their son Archie might be. He said it was “unconscious bias” but not racism.
More viewers were watching BBC One’s Happy Valley when the ITV interview tuned in, according to overnight figures.
Harry: The Interview drew an average of 4.1 million television viewers, while Happy Valley, which launched at the same time, averaged 5.3 million viewers.
On racism, he told ABC the royal family should modernize itself by eliminating “unconscious biases” that can “seed into racism.”
In a separate interview with CBS on Sunday, given their criticism of the royal family, Harry was asked why they shouldn’t relinquish their titles as Duke and Duchess of Sussex. He replied, “What difference would that make?”