Prince Harry says it became ‘Meghan versus Kate’

By Laura Gozzi and Sean Coughlan, royal correspondent

BBC News

Prince Harry has accused the Royal Family of failing to defend his wife Meghan in the controversy over a Jeremy Clarkson newspaper column.

In an ITV interview, the Duke of Sussex said the “silence is deafening” about the “horrific” Sun article last month.

He contrasted this with the quick action taken after a race row at a Buckingham Palace reception.

Prince Harry also said he did not believe comments about his son’s skin tone, by an unnamed royal, were racist.

The Clarkson article about Meghan had described how the columnist was “dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her”.

It was later taken down by the Sun and prompted an apology from the paper. Mr Clarkson said he was “horrified” for the hurt he caused.

The article was described by Prince Harry as “horrific and hurtful and cruel towards my wife”.

“The world is asking for some form of comment from the monarchy. But the silence is deafening. To put it mildly,” he said.

“Everything to do with my wife, after six years, they haven’t said a single thing.”

Prince Harry accused the Royal Family of “getting into bed with the devil” to improve its image – which he linked to relationships between “certain members of the family and the tabloid press”.

The prince contrasted the lack of a royal response to that article with the events that followed an encounter at Buckingham Palace between Lady Susan Hussey and Ngozi Fulani, just three weeks earlier.

While attending an event, Ms Fulani – a black British charity founder – was challenged repeatedly by Lady Hussey about where she was “really from”.

Ms Fulani complained about how the exchange had offended her, prompting a rapid apology from the Palace.

In a statement, the Palace described the remarks as “unacceptable and deeply regrettable”. Lady Hussey ultimately resigned as a lady of the household.

Prince Harry, speaking to interviewer Tom Bradby ahead of the publication of his memoir Spare this Tuesday, defended Lady Hussey, saying “she had never meant any harm at all”.

But he pointed to the contrast between the treatment given to Ms Fulani and to his wife after the language used about her by Jeremy Clarkson.

Prince Harry also gave an interview to Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes on CBS News, which aired a few hours after ITV’s show, and saw him speaking about Camilla, the Queen Consort, and her relationship with the media.

Cooper asked the duke about comments he made in his memoir suggesting that Camilla would be “less dangerous” if she was happy.

Prince Harry said Camilla’s need to “rehabilitate her image” and her “willingness” to forge relationships with the British press made her dangerous.

“And with a family built on hierarchy, and her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.”

The ITV interview returned to Prince Harry and Meghan’s previous claim – made in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey – that a member of the Royal Family had raised questions about the skin colour of their future child.

Prince Harry again did not name the individual – and suggested this might have been a case of “unconscious bias” rather than racism.

Asked if he would see the questioning as racist, he said: “I wouldn’t, not having lived within that family.”

He rejected that he had accused members of the Royal Family of racism in the Oprah interview, saying the “British press had said that”.

The wide-ranging interview also discussed the tensions that followed Meghan’s introduction into the Royal Family.

Bradby said there was an impression that Prince William and Catherine “almost from the get-go” did not “get on” with Meghan.

Asked if that was a fair observation, Prince Harry replied: “Yeah, fair.”

Prince Harry said he and Meghan had been portrayed as the “new kids on the block” who had threatened to “steal the limelight” from other royals – and that led to problems in those relationships.

Of brother Prince William and his wife Catherine, he said: “I always hoped that the four of us would get on.

“But very quickly it became Meghan versus Kate.

“And that, when it plays out so publicly, you can’t hide from that,” he told Bradby.

In the 95-minute interview, he recalled the days when he was the “third wheel” at official engagements and other outings – but his relationship with Prince William and Catherine was particularly warm at that time.

He imagined that would continue when he found his own partner and they became a foursome, but it was not to be.

He said stereotypes about Meghan – as an “American actress, divorced, biracial” – were heightened by a hostile press.

And those stereotypes about the new woman in his life had been a barrier to his brother and sister-in-law “welcoming her in” to the family.

Prince Harry said that while Prince William never tried to dissuade him from marrying Meghan he did “air some concerns” and warned Harry: “This is going to be really hard for you”.

“I still to this day don’t truly understand which part… he was talking about. But maybe, you know, maybe he predicted what the British press’s reaction was going to be.”

In the CBS interview, Cooper asked Prince Harry about claims he made in his memoir that unspecified members of the Royal Family were uneasy towards Meghan when she was first introduced to them.

Asked what that “mistrust” was based on, Prince Harry said: “The fact that she was American, an actress, divorced, black, bi-racial, with a black mother.

“Those were just four of the typical stereotypes that becomes a feeding frenzy for the British press.”

The prince said the Royal Family reads the tabloids, adding: “So whether you walk around saying you believe it or not it’s still leaving an imprint in your mind.

“So if you have that judgement based on a stereotype right at the beginning, it’s very, very hard not to get over that.”

In the ITV interview, Harry also spoke of the emotional impact of the death of his mother and in his book describes returning to the scene of the car accident in Paris – and asking to be driven through it at the same speed as she was in 1997.

He said he had always imagined the tunnel as being “some treacherous passageway” but “it was just a short, simple, no-frills tunnel”.

He saw no point in reopening inquiries into the car accident – but questioned the official conclusions about the night of the crash.

A 2008 inquest found Diana was unlawfully killed partly due to the “gross negligence” of her driver who had been drunk and driving at excessive speed.

Prince Harry also said that, after Diana’s death, he and his brother William were sat down in a room and told that the events leading to the car crash were “like a bicycle chain”.

“If you remove just one of those links from the chain, the end result doesn’t happen,” Harry recalled being told.

When William asked what might have happened had the paparazzi not been chasing Diana’s car, he was told that “the result wouldn’t have been the same.”

During the interview, Harry also expressed his hope that he might one day reconcile with his father and brother.

“Forgiveness is 100% a possibility, because I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back,” he said.

“At the moment, I don’t recognise them, as much as they probably don’t recognise me.”

He blamed the tabloid press as the “antagonist”, who he said “want to create as much conflict as possible”.

The ITV interview is the first of four broadcast appearances to be aired over the coming days to promote Spare – but all the others were in the US.

As well as Anderson Cooper from CBS News, he spoke to Michael Strahan of Good Morning America, for a show that will be broadcast later on Monday. He will also appear as a guest on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on CBS on Tuesday.

Although Spare is not due to be published until Tuesday, extracts were leaked after some copies went on sale early in Spain. BBC News has obtained a copy and has been translating it.

Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace have both said they will not comment on the contents of the book.

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