LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Prince Harry said he has opened up about his differences with the British royal family and is appealing to the press to help the monarchy and change the media, the latter a “suicide mission” by his father, King Charles.
In the first a series of television interviews Released ahead of Sunday’s memoir, Harry accused family members of sleeping with the devil – the tabloid press – to persuade him and his wife Meghan to improve their reputations.
She told Britain’s ITV that she and her family fled Britain to California in 2020, “fearing for our lives” and saying she no longer knew her father and her older brother, Prince William, the heir to the throne.
“After many years of lying about me and my family, there comes a point when some members of the family decided to sleep with the devil, going back to the relationship between some members of the family and the tabloid press. … to restore their image,” he said.
“If that rehabilitation is at the expense of others, me, other members of my family, then I draw the line.”
Thursday, Harry’s spare book mistakenly released in Spain five days before its official release, chronicle not the big personal details like how she lost her virginity and taking illegal drugs, but the more intimate personal cases of family disharmony.
The book says that her older brother had knocked her down in a hand-to-hand fight, and both sisters begged their father not to marry his second wife, Camilla, now Queen Consort.
Commentators say the book has plunged the monarchy into its biggest crisis since the royal soap opera days of the 1990s over the breakdown of Charles’ marriage to his late first wife, Princess Diana, mother of William and Harry.
Everything comes only after four months Queen Elizabeth died and Charles ascended the throne.
In an interview with ITV, Harry reiterated and elaborated on the allegations he and Meghan made after stepping down as royals; the royal family and their aides not only failed to protect them from a hostile and sometimes racist press, but actively leaked stories about them through anonymous sources.
CONFLICT
“The saddest part of this is that certain members of my family and the people who work for them are involved in this conflict,” both Charles and Camilla said.
So far, there has been no comment from Buckingham Palace. Harry said he didn’t think his father or brother would ever read his book.
An unnamed friend of William’s told the Sunday Times that the Prince of Wales was “burning with anger” but would not respond “for the good of his family and his country”.
Harry told ITV that he wanted to reconcile with family members but that they showed no interest, giving the impression that it was better to keep him and Meghan as villains.
“I truly believe and hope that the reconciliation between my family and us will have a ripple effect around the world. Maybe that’s lofty, maybe that’s naive,” he said.
Harry also said he hoped his multiple legal actions against newspapers would help transform the media, which he said was “at the heart of many of the problems in the UK”.
“My dad told me it was probably a suicide mission to try to change the press,” he said.
Polls show that many Britons are getting fed up with all the royal melodrama, and the subsequent revelations, while sympathetic to Harry and Meghan, won’t sway their critics.
“I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family. I always will. Nothing I did in this book or anything else … was meant to hurt them or hurt them,” she said. .
Reporting by Michael Holden and Sarah Mills; Edited by Francis Currie and Paul Simao
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