Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix docuseries, released in December, made headlines and became a polarizing topic of discussion in many circles. One of their most vocal critics, British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson, has now offered a new and more direct apology for comments he made in a column published in The Sun newspaper, in which he said he “hates” Markle.
In the December article, which has been removed from The Sun’s website, Clarkson said he lies awake at night “grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she [Meghan] 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.”
The article immediately received widespread backlash, including more than 20,000 complaints to the U.K.’s Independent Press Standards Organization, which aims to hold newspapers and magazines accountable to uphold certain standards. Clarkson then said he was sorry his comments “caused so much hurt,” but he stopped short of apologizing directly for what he said.
In an interview with ITV, Prince Harry said the article was “horrific and hurtful and cruel towards my wife,” BBC News reported.
In his new statement, shared on Instagram Monday, Clarkson said he usually he reads his work to someone before submitting it, but he was in a hurry when he wrote the article about the couple and he “just pressed send.”
“I really am sorry,” he writes. “All the way from the balls of my feet to the follicles on my head.” He said he became aware of the criticism as a “slow rumble” at first, “but then the rumble got louder.”
In the statement, Clarkson said he was referring to a “Game of Thrones” scene in his description of Markle being paraded through the streets, but forgot to mention it in the article. He made the same explanation on Twitter after the article was published: “Oh dear. I’ve rather put my foot in it. In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future,” he tweeted.
He said he had been “accused of all sorts of things” in the past but “it was very rarely sexism,” and he was angry with himself after the debacle with his column.
“I was mortified and so was everyone else,” his new statement reads. “My phone went mad. Very close friends were furious. Even my own daughter took to Instagram to denounce me.” Clarkson’s daughter, Emily, wrote at the time: “I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything my dad wrote about Meghan Markle.”
The Sun published an apology on December 23, writing: “We at The Sun regret the publication of this article and we are sincerely sorry.” Still, critics called on Clarkson to be fired — or even charged with a hate crime, he says in his statement.
Clarkson said he emailed an apology to Prince Harry and Meghan on Christmas morning. “I said I was baffled by what they had been saying on TV but that the language I’d used in my column was disgraceful and that I was profoundly sorry,” he writes.
In their documentary series, “Harry & Meghan,” the couple said what drove them to leave their roles in royal family in 2020 was the antagonizing media, which perpetuated rumors and sometimes made racist comments against Markle, who is biracial and the first person of color to join the royal family.
In Prince Harry’s new book “Spare,” released last week, he also called out the British media and said his family was not supportive as he and Meghan struggled with the tabloids and especially the “racial undertones of comment pieces” about his wife.
“They felt as though it made them look bad,” Harry told Anderson Cooper in an interview for CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” “They felt as though they didn’t have a chance or weren’t able to do that for their partners.”
“What Meghan had to go through was similar in some part to what Kate and what Camilla went through, very different circumstances. But then you add in the race element, which was what the press— British press jumped on straight away.”
Clarkson stars on “Clarkson’s Farm,” an Amazon Prime Video series, following his attempt at running a farm. Variety reports that Amazon will likely part ways with Clarkson and canceled a virtual press event for the show on Monday.
Clarkson also hosts “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” on ITV in the U.K. Kevin Lygo, the head of ITV’s media and entertainment division, said there were no plans “at the moment” to replace him as host, BBC News reports.
After weeks of headline-grabbing leaks and TV interviews, Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir, “Spare,” is finally on bookshelves worldwide. As CBS News correspondent Holly Williams reports, the book is full of startling revelations and bombshell allegations regarding Harry’s brother William, his father King Charles, and the U.K. tabloid media.
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Prince Harry’s memoir’s title, “Spare,” is a nod to his position as the backup son in the line of royal succession. The book, however, is hardly an afterthought in bookstores, with the title jumping to the top of several bestseller lists as it hit store shelves on Tuesday.
As “Spare” made its debut it ranked No. 1 on Amazon’s nonfiction bestseller list, while it was also atop Barnes & Noble’s top 100 sellers the same day. However, it may take a week or more to show up on the gold standard of bestseller lists, the New York Times, as its current nonfiction bestseller list is based on data from sales before December 31, which is prior to the publication date of the book.
In the memoir, the 38-year-old Harry details his life as part of the royal family, warts and all — and it may be the warts that are boosting book sales. The memoir covers his decades-long struggle with grief after his mother Princess Diana died in a car crash and discusses conflicts he has had with his father, King Charles; his stepmother, the Queen Consort Camilla; and his brother, Prince William, who is heir to the throne.
In the book, Harry writes about his father waking up him and his brother, then 12 and 15, respectively, to tell them of their mother’s death.
“Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances. But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be okay,’” Harry wrote in his recounting of hearing the painful news.
The book details Harry’s experiments with psychedelics in search of relief from his trauma, as well as his military career and his revelation that he killed 25 people in Afghanistan while serving in the British armed forces.
Other bombshells include his claim that William physically assaulted him over tension related to Meghan Markle, whom Harry married in 2018. William reportedly called Meghan “abrasive,” “difficult” and “rude,” the book says.
“It all happened so fast. So very fast. [William] grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor.I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out,” Harry wrote in “Spare.”
Reviews: The good, the bad and the ugly
So far, reviews of the book have been mixed, with some critics praising the memoir while others not. The Economist called it an “ill-advised romp.”
“‘Spare’ is by turns compassion-inducing, frustrating, oddly compelling and absurd,” The Guardian wrote in its Monday review of the book.
Other reviewers praised the book, but with caveats. The Financial Times noted, “You may question whether you should be reading anything more about Harry, let alone a 416-page book.”
But, its reviewer added, “Of all Harry and Meghan’s output since they stepped down from royal duties in 2020 — the interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Spotify podcasts, the six-hour Netflix documentary — ‘Spare’ is the most bearable and revelatory.”
Not exactly high praise, but it may be enough to convince readers to open their pocketbooks and order a copy.
Prince Harry spoke with “60 Minutes” about how members of his family leaked negative stories about him to the British press to improve their own image. He also clarified previous claims about alleged racism in the royal family. Charlie D’Agata has more details.
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Prince Harry may have “stepped back” from his royal duties in 2020, but he and his wife, Meghan, the duchess of Sussex, certainly haven’t stepped away from the spotlight. Just last month they appeared in a six-part Netflix documentary about their relationship and their decision to leave their royal lives behind. But now, the 38-year-old Prince Harry is telling his own story. In a new memoir, coming out Tuesday, called “Spare” — a nod to his backup role in the line of succession. The book is a stunning break with royal protocol. It’s a deeply personal account of Prince Harry’s decades-long struggle with grief after the death of his mother Princess Diana, and a revealing look at his fractured relationships with his father, King Charles, his stepmother, the Queen Consort Camilla, and his brother, Prince William, the heir to his spare.
Anderson Cooper: You write about a contentious meeting you had with him in 2021. You said, “I looked at Willy, really looked at him maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in, his familiar scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me, his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own, his famous resemblance to Mummy which was fading with time, with age.” That’s pretty cutting.
Prince Harry: I don’t see it as cutting at all. Um, you know, my brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years. None of anything I’ve written, anything that I’ve included is ever intended to hurt my family. But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers.
Anderson Cooper: I think so many people around the world watched you and your brother grow up and feel like you two were inseparable. And yet in reading the book, you have lived separate lives from the time your mom died.
Prince Harry: Uh-huh (AFFIRM)
Anderson Cooper: Even when you were in the same school, in high school…
Prince Harry: Sibling rivalry.
Anderson Cooper: Your brother told you, “Pretend we don’t know each other.”
Prince Harry: Yeah, and at the time it hurt. I couldn’t make sense of it. I was like, “What do you mean? We’re now at the same school. Like, I haven’t seen you for ages, now we get to hang out together.” He’s like, “No, no, no, when we’re at school we don’t know each other.” And I took that personally. But yes, you’re absolutely right, you hit the nail on the head. Like, we had a very similar traumatic experience, and then we– we dealt with it two very different ways.
Prince Harry
Anderson Cooper: William had tried to talk to you occasionally about your mom, but, as a child you could not– you couldn’t respond.
Prince Harry: For me, it was never a case of, “I don’t want to talk about it with you.” I just don’t know how to talk about it. I never ever thought that maybe talking about it with my brother or with anybody else at that point would be therapeutic.
In August 1997, Harry and William were vacationing in Scotland with their father. Harry was 12, William, 15. They were asleep at Balmoral Castle on August 31st, when Harry was awakened by his father who told him his mother had been in a car crash in Paris.
Anderson Cooper: In the book you write, “He says, ‘They tried, darling boy. I’m afraid she didn’t make it.’ These phrases remain in my mind like darts on a board,” you say. Did– did you cry?
Prince Harry: No. No. Never shed a single tear at that point. I was in shock, you know? Twelve years old, sort of 7:00– 7:30 in the morning early. Your father comes in, sits on your bed, puts his hand on your knee and tells you “There’s been an accident.” I– I couldn’t believe.
Anderson Cooper: And you write in the book that, “Pa didn’t hug me. He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances. But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said, ‘It’s going to be okay.’” But after that, nothing was okay for a long time.
Harry says his memories of the next few days are fragmented. But he does remember this: greeting mourners outside Kensington Palace in London the day before his mother’s funeral.
Anderson Cooper: When you see those videos now, what do you think?
Prince Harry: I think it’s bizarre, because I see William and me smiling. I remember the guilt that I felt.
Anderson Cooper: Guilt about?
Prince Harry: The fact that the people that we were meeting were showing more emotion than we were showing, maybe more emotion than we even felt.
Anderson Cooper: They were crying, but you weren’t.
Prince Harry: There was a lotta tears. I talk about how wet people’s hands were. And I couldn’t understand it at first.
Anderson Cooper: Their hands were wet from crying–
Prince Harry: Their hands were wet from wiping their own tears away. I do remember one of the strangest parts to it was taking flowers from people and then placing those flowers with the rest of them. As if I was some sort of middle person for their grief. And that really stood out for me.
The funeral, on a cool September morning, was watched by as many as 2.5 billion people around the world. Perhaps the most indelible image: Prince Harry and his brother, walking behind their mother’s casket on its way to Westminster Abbey.
Anderson Cooper: What do you remember about that walk?
Prince Harry: How quiet it was. I remember, the occasional wail and screaming of someone. I remember the horse hooves on the road.
Prince Harry: The bridles of the horses, the gun carriage, the wheels, the occasional gravel stone underneath your shoe. But mainly the– the silence.
After the service, Princess Diana’s body was brought for burial to her family’s ancestral estate, Althorp.
Prince Harry: Once my mother’s coffin actually went into the ground, that was the first time that I actually cried. Yeah, there was never another time.
Anderson Cooper: All through your teenage years, you did– you didn’t cry about it?
Prince Harry: No.
Anderson Cooper: You didn’t believe she was dead.
Prince Harry: Unh-uh (NEGATIVE). For a long– for a long time, I just refused to accept that she was– she was gone. Um, part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of, maybe this is all part of a plan.
Anderson Cooper: I mean, you really believed that maybe she had just decided to disappear for a time?
Prince Harry: For a time, and then that she would call us and that we would go and join her, yeah.
Anderson Cooper: How long did you believe that?
Prince Harry: Years. Many, many years. And William and I talked about it as well. He had– he had um, similar thoughts.
Anderson Cooper: You write in the book, “I’d often say it to myself first thing in the morning, ‘Maybe this is the day. Maybe this is the day that she’s gonna reappear.’”
Prince Harry: Yeah, hope. I had huge amounts of hope
He held onto that hope into adulthood. When Harry was 20, he asked to see the police report about the crash that killed his mother, her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed and their driver Henri Paul while they were being pursued by paparazzi in a Paris tunnel.
Anderson Cooper: The files contained photographs of the crash scene. Why did you want to see it?
Prince Harry: Mainly proof. Proof that she was in the car. Proof that she was injured. And proof that the very paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones that were taking photographs– photographs of her lying half dead on the back seat of the car.
Anderson Cooper: You write in the book, “I hadn’t been aware before this moment,” talking about looking at the pictures of the crash scene, “that the last thing Mummy saw on this earth was a flash bulb.”
Prince Harry: Yep
Anderson Cooper: That’s what you saw in the pictures?
Prince Harry: Uh-huh (AFFIRM) (good face). Well they were – the pictures showed the reflection of a group of photographs taking photographs through the window, and the reflection on the window was– was them.
He only saw some of the crash photos, his private secretary and advisor dissuaded him from looking at the rest.
Prince Harry: All I saw was the back of my mum’s head– slumped on the back seat. There were other more gruesome photographs, but I will be eternally grateful to him for denying me the ability to inflict pain on myself by seeing that. Because that’s the kinda stuff that sticks in your mind forever.
Harry says he believed his mother might stillbe alive until he was 23 and visited Paris for the first time.
Anderson Cooper: You told your driver, “I want to go to the tunnel where my mom died?”
Prince Harry: I wanted to see whether it was possible driving at the speed that Henri Paul was driving that you could lose control of a car and plow into a pillar killing almost everybody in that car. I need to take this journey. I need to ride the same route–
Anderson Cooper: The same tunnel, the same speed–
Prince Harry: All of it.
Anderson Cooper: –your mother was going.
Prince Harry: Yup. Because William and I had already been told, “The event was like a bicycle chain. If you remove one of those chains, the end result would not have happened.” And the paparazzi chasing was part of that. But yet, everybody got away with it.
Harry writes he and his brother weren’t satisfied with the results of a 2006 investigation by London’s Metropolitan Police, concluding Diana’s driver, Henri Paul, had been drinking and the crash was a “tragic accident.”
Prince Harry: William and I considered reopening the inquest. Because there were so many gaps and so many holes in it. Which just didn’t add up and didn’t make sense.
Anderson Cooper: Would you still like to do that?
Prince Harry: I don’t even know if it’s an option now. But no, I think– brrrr– would I like to do that now? It’s a hell of a question, Anderson.
Anderson Cooper: Do you feel you have the answers that you need to have about what happened to your mom?
Prince Harry: Truth be known, no. I don’t think I do. And I don’t think my brother does either. I don’t think the world does. Um – do I need any more than I already know? No. I don’t think it would change much.
Harry now says it wasn’t until he served in combat with the British Army in Afghanistan that he finally found purpose and a sense of normalcy.
Prince Harry: My military career saved me in many regard.
Anderson Cooper: How so?
Prince Harry: Got me out of the spotlight from the– from the U.K. press. I was able to focus on a purpose larger than myself, to be wearing the same uniform as everybody else, to feel normal for the first time in my life. And accomplish some of the biggest challenges that I ever had. You know, I was training to become an Apache helicopter pilot. You don’t get a pass for being a prince.
Anderson Cooper: The Apache doesn’t give a crap about who you are.
Prince Harry: No, there’s– there’s no prince autopilot button you (LAUGH) can press and just whff– takes you away. I was a really good candidate for the military. I was a young man in my 20s suffering from shock. But I was now in the front seat of an Apache shooting it, flying it, monitoring four radios simultaneously and being there to save and help anybody that was on the– on the ground with a radio screaming, “We need support, we need air support.” That was my calling. I felt healing from that weirdly.
Anderson Cooper: And that multi-tasking the brain work of that, that felt good to you?
Prince Harry: It felt like I was turning pain into a purpose. I didn’t have the awareness at the time that I was living my life in adrenaline, and that was the case from age 12, from the moment that I was told that my mom had died.
Anderson Cooper: you say, “War didn’t begin in Afghanistan. It began in August 1997.”
Prince Harry: Yeah. The war for me unknowingly was when my mum died.
Anderson Cooper: Who were you fighting?
Prince Harry: Myself. I had a huge amount of frustration and blame towards the British press for their part in it.
Anderson Cooper: Even at 12 at that young you were feeling that toward the British press?
Prince Harry: Yeah. I mean, it was obvious to us as kids the British press’ part in our mother’s misery and I had a lot of anger inside of me that luckily, I never expressed to anybody. But I resorted to drinking heavily. Because I wanted to numb the feeling, or I wanted to distract myself from how… whatever I was thinking. And I would, you know, resort to drugs as well.
Harry admits he smoked pot and used cocaine. And he writes that in his late 20s he felt “hopeless” and “lost.”
Prince Harry: There was this weight on my chest that I felt for so many years that I was never able to cry. So I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, but– in even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum. And sometimes I watched videos online.
Anderson Cooper: Of your mom?
Prince Harry: Of my mum.
Anderson Cooper: Hoping to cry?
Prince Harry: Yup.
Anderson Cooper: And you couldn’t.
Prince Harry: I couldn’t.
He sought out help from a therapist for the first time seven years ago. And he reveals he’s also tried more experimental treatments.
Anderson Cooper: You write in the book about psychedelics, Ayahuasca, psilocybin, mushrooms.
Prince Harry: I would never recommend people to do this recreationally. But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine.
Anderson Cooper: They showed you something. What did they show you?
Prince Harry: For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that– that my mother, that I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.
Prince Harry says he’s found that happiness with his wife in California, but he’s far from at peace with the royal family.
Harry’s memoir “Spare”, is anything but spare in its unflattering portrayal of the royal family, especially his stepmother, Camilla, now the queen consort. She married then-Prince Charles in 2005, though the two had been romantically involved on and off for decades. When Princess Diana famously referred to Camilla as the third person in her marriage, the British tabloids ran with it, and Prince Harry has never forgotten.
Prince Harry: She was the villain. She was the third person in their marriage. She needed to rehabilitate her image.
Anderson Cooper: You and your brother both directly asked your dad not to marry Camilla?
Prince Harry: Yes.
Anderson Cooper: Why?
Prince Harry: We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person, that– surely that’s enough. Why go that far when you don’t necessarily need to? We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her. So, at the time, it was, “Ok.”
Anderson Cooper: You wrote that she started a campaign in the British press to pave the way for a marriage. And you wrote, “I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy.” How was she dangerous?
Prince Harry: Because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image.
Anderson Cooper: That made her dangerous?
Prince Harry: That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that.
Harry says over the years, he was one of those bodies. He accuses Camilla and even his father, at times, of using him or William to get better tabloid coverage for themselves. Prince Harry writes, Camilla, “sacrificed me on her personal P.R. altar.”
Prince Harry: If you are led to believe, as a member of the family, that being on the front page, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public, then that’s what you’re gonna do.
In his book, Harry writes that when he introduced Meghan Markle to his family in 2016, his father initially took a liking to her, but William was skeptical, disdainfully referring to Meghan as “an American actress.” Though Harry doesn’t specify who – he says other members of the royal family were uneasy as well.
Prince Harry: Right from the beginning, before they even had a chance to get to know her. And the U.K. press jumped on that. And here we are.
Anderson Cooper: And what was that based on, that mistrust?
Prince Harry: The fact that she was American, an actress, divorced, Black, biracial with a Black mother. Those were just four of the typical stereotypes that is– becomes a feeding frenzy for the British press.
Anderson Cooper: But all those things within the family also were– were sources of mistrust,
Prince Harry: Yes. You know, my family read the tabloids, you know? It’s laid out– at breakfast when everyone comes together. So, whether you walk around saying you believe it or not, it’s still– it’s still leaving an imprint in your mind. So if you have that judgment based on a stereotype right at the beginning, it’s very, very hard to get over that. And a large part of it for the family, but also the British press and numerous other people is, like, “He’s changed. She must be a witch. He’s changed.” As opposed to yeah, I did change, and I’m really glad I changed. Because rather than getting drunk, falling out of clubs, taking drugs, I had now found the love of my life, and I now had the opportunity to start a family with her.
Soon after their relationship became public, Harry insisted on putting out a statement condemning some of the tabloid coverage of Meghan and what he called quote “the racial undertones of comment pieces.”
Anderson Cooper: You write that your dad and your brother, William, were furious with you for doing that. Why?
Prince Harry: They felt as though it made them look bad. They felt as though they didn’t have a chance or weren’t able to do that for their partners. What Meghan had to go through was similar in some part to what Kate and what Camilla went through, very different circumstances. But then you add in the race element, which was what the press– British press jumped on straight away. I went into this incredibly naïve. I had no idea the British press were so bigoted. Hell, I was probably bigoted before–
Anderson Cooper: You– you–
Prince Harry: –the relationship with– with Meghan.
Anderson Cooper: You think you were bigoted before the relationship with Meghan.
Prince Harry: I– I don’t know. Put it this way, I didn’t see what I now see.
They were married in May 2018, in a ceremony that seemed to promise a more modern and inclusive royal family — and given the titles duke and duchess of Sussex. But behind the scenes, according to Harry, William’s mistrust of Meghan only worsened.
Anderson Cooper: Did you ever try to meet with William and Kate to try to defuse the tension?
In early 2019, Harry writes, the rancor between William and him exploded at Harry’s cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace.
Anderson Cooper: Your arguments with your brother became physical.
Prince Harry: It was a buildup of– frustration, I think, on his part. It was at a time where he was being told certain things by people within his office. And at the same time, he was consuming a lot of the tabloid press, a lot of the stories. And he had a few issues, which were based not on reality. And I was defending my wife. And he was coming for my wife– she wasn’t there at the time– but through the things that he was saying. I was defending myself. And we moved from one room into the kitchen. And his frustrations were growing, and growing, and growing. He was shouting at me. I was shouting back at him. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t pleasant at all. And he snapped. And he pushed me to the floor.
Anderson Cooper: He knocked you over?
Prince Harry: He knocked me over. I landed on the dog bowl.
Anderson Cooper: You cut your back.
Prince Harry: Yeah. I cut my back. I didn’t know about it at the time. But, yeah, he– he apologized afterwards. It was a pretty nasty experience, but—
Anderson Cooper: He asked you not to tell anybody– not to tell Meghan?
Prince Harry: Yeah. And– and I wouldn’t have done. And, I didn’t until she– until she saw on the– on my back. She goes, “What’s that?” I was like, “Huh, what?” I actually didn’t know what she was talking about. I looked in the mirror. I was like, “Oh s***.” Well, ’cause I’d never s-I hadn’t seen it.
Meghan has said constant criticism and pressure led her in the winter of 2019 to contemplate suicide.
Prince Harry: The thing that’s terrified me the most is history repeating itself.
Anderson Cooper: You really feared that your wife, Meghan…
Prince Harry: Yes, I feared, I feared a lot that the end result, the fact that I lost my mum when I was 12 years old, could easily happen again to my wife.
In January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan announced they intended to, in their words, step back as senior members of the royal family. They moved to California three months later. Then there was the headline-grabbing interview with Oprah Winfrey and a deal with Netflix worth a reported $100 million. Critics say the duke and duchess are cashing in on their royal titles while they still can.
Anderson Cooper: Why not renounce your titles as duke and duchess?
Prince Harry: And what difference would that make?
Anderson Cooper: One of the criticisms that you’ve received is that okay, fine, you wanna move to California, you wanna step back from the institutional role. Why be so public? Why reveal conversations you’ve had with your father or– with your brother? You say you tried to do this privately.
Prince Harry: And every single time I’ve tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife. You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But it’s just a motto. And it doesn’t really hold–
Anderson Cooper: There’s a lotta complaining and a lot of explaining.
Prince Harry: Endless–
Anderson Cooper: Private– being done in– through leaks.
Prince Harry: Through leaks.
Prince Harry continues to claim he would never leak against his family.
Prince Harry: So now, trying to speak a language that perhaps they understand, I will sit here and speak truth to you with the words that come out of my mouth, rather than using someone else, an unnamed source, to feed in lies or a narrative to a tabloid media that literally radicalizes its readers to then potentially cause harm to my family, my wife, my kids.
Last month, the British tabloid The Sun published a vicious column about Meghan written by a tv host.
Anderson Cooper: He said, “I hate her. At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day where she is made to walk naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, ‘Shame,’ and throw lumps of excrement at her.” Did that surprise you?
Prince Harry: Did it surprise me? No. Is it shocking? Yes. I mean, thank you for proving our point.
Anderson Cooper: Has there been any response from the palace
Prince Harry: No. And there comes a point when silence is betrayal
Harry has been back in the United Kingdom. He was in London last September for a charity event when the palace announced his grandmother, the queen, was under medical supervision at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.
Prince Harry: I asked my brother– I said, “What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there?” And then, a couple of hours later, you know, all of the fam– family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together, a plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats.
Anderson Cooper: You were not invited on that plane?
Prince Harry: I was not invited.
By the time Harry got to Balmoral on his own, the queen was dead.
Prince Harry: I walked into the hall, and my aunt was there to greet me. And she asked me if I wanted to see her. I thought about it for about five seconds, thinking, “Is this a good idea?” And I was, like, “You know what? You can– you can do this. You– you need to say goodbye.” So I went upstairs, took my jacket off and walked in and just spent some time with her alone.
Anderson Cooper: Where was she?
Prince Harry: She was in her bedroom. I was actually– I was really happy for her. Because she’d finished life. She’d completed life, and her husband was– was waiting for her. And the two of them are buried together.
As they had 25 years earlier, Harry and William found themselves walking together, but apart, this time behind their grandmother’s casket.
Anderson Cooper: Do you speak to William now? Do you text?
Prince Harry: Currently, no. But I look forward to– I look forward to us being able to find peace. I want—
Anderson Cooper: How long has it been since you spoke?
Prince Harry: A while.
Anderson Cooper: Do you speak to your dad?
Prince Harry: We aren’t– we haven’t spoken for quite a while. No, not recently.
Anderson Cooper: Can you see a day when you would return as a full-time member of the royal family?
Prince Harry: No. I can’t see that happening.
Anderson Cooper: In the book, you called this, “A– full-scale rupture.” Can it be healed?
Prince Harry: Yes. The ball is very much in their court, but, you know, Meghan and I have continued to say that we will openly apologize for anything that we did wrong, but every time we ask that question, no one’s telling us sp– the specifics or anything. There needs to be a constructive conversation, one that can happen in private that doesn’t get leaked.
Anderson Cooper: I assume they would say, “Well, how can we trust you how do we know that you’re not gonna reveal whatever conversations we have in an interview somewhere?”
Prince Harry: This all started with them briefing, daily, against my wife with lies to the point of where my wife and I had to run away from our count– my country.
Anderson Cooper: It’s hard, I think, for anybody to imagine a family dynamic that is so “Game of Thrones” without dragons.
Prince Harry: I don’t watch “Game of Thrones,” but–
Anderson Cooper: Oh. Okay.
Prince Harry: –there’s def– but there’s definitely dragons. And that’s again the third party which is the British Press so ultimately without the British press as part of this, we would probably still be a fairly dysfunctional family, like, a lot are. But at the heart of it, there is a family, without question. Um – and I really look forward to having that family element back. I look forward to having a relationship with my brother. I look forward to having a relationship with my father and other members of my family.
Anderson Cooper: You want that?
Prince Harry: That’s all I’ve ever asked for.
We reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. Its representatives demanded that before considering responding, 60 Minutes provide them with our report prior to airing it tonight, which is something we never do.
Produced by Draggan Mihailovich. Associate producer, Emily Cameron. Broadcast associate, Eliza Costas. Edited by Warren Lustig.
Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” has contributed to 60 Minutes since 2006. His exceptional reporting on big news events has earned Cooper a reputation as one of television’s pre-eminent newsmen.
Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare” has not yet been released but a copy allegedly obtained by a British newspaper contains a story about Prince William allegedly attacking Prince Harry. CBS News foreign correspondent Holly Williams reports.
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London — In his forthcoming autobiography, Spare, Prince Harry says that his brother, heir to the throne Prince William, physically attacked him in 2019, according to a report in Britain’s Guardian newspaper. The Guardian says it viewed a copy of Harry’s book, which is due out next Tuesday. CBS News has not seen a copy of Spare and is not able to independently verify the report.
According to the Guardian, William went to meet Harry at his then residence on the grounds of Kensington Palace, Nottingham Cottage, wishing to discuss “the whole rolling catastrophe” of their struggles with the media and their personal relationship.
When he arrived, Harry said, William was already angry and started “parrot[ing] the press narrative,” calling Meghan “abrasive,” “difficult,” and “rude.”
William reportedly said Harry was not being rational, and Harry accused his older brother of acting like an heir and refusing to understand why Harry wasn’t happy to be treated poorly, just because he was not the next in line for the throne. William reportedly said he was trying to help Harry, who scoffed, further angering William, who moved towards him, swearing.
The book apparently describes Harry then going into the kitchen and giving William a glass of water.
“He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me,” Harry writes, according to the Guardian. “It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”
Harry said that William urged him to hit him back, referencing fights they had as kids, but Harry refused, so William left but then returned, “looking regretful, and apologized.”
Harry said he didn’t immediately tell Meghan about the fight, but did tell his therapist. When Meghan later noticed the scrapes on his back, he told her, and “she was terribly sad.”
There was no comment from Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace or the publisher of Spare, Penguin Random House, in response to the Guardian report.
The book recounts another meeting of the brothers, according to the Guardian, this time with their father, now King Charles III, after the funeral of the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip, in April 2021.
According to the Guardian report, Harry says Charles stood between his two angry sons and said: “Please, boys. Don’t make my final years a misery.”
Two interviews ahead of the official release of Harry’s book are expected this weekend, one with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” and the other with British broadcaster ITV News.
In the “60 Minutes” interview, which will air in full on Sunday, Harry says he tried to resolve the conflicts with his family in private, but that the palace used the media against him and Meghan. In a clip from the ITV interview, which also airs Sunday, he seems to suggest that he would like to reconcile.
“The door is always open,” Harry says. “The ball is in their court.”
London — Prince Harry’s long-awaited memoir, “Spare,” is due out next week, but with a copy leaked to the Guardian newspaper and the book accidentally put on sale early in Spain, some early revelations have been made public.
There was no comment from Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace in response to the leaked allegations.
Prince Harry says he killed 25 people in Afghanistan
In his new memoir “Spare,” Harry outlines how he killed 25 people while serving in the British army.
“In battle conditions, there’s often a great deal of indiscriminate firing. But in the age of Apaches and laptops, everything I did in the course of two combat tours was recorded, time-stamped,” Harry writes.
“I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed. And I felt it vital to never shy away from that number. Amongst the many things I learned in the Army, accountability was near the top of the list.”
Harry says that the number 25 was “not something that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed. Naturally, I would have preferred not to have that number on my military CV, on my mind, but by the same token, I’d have preferred to live in a world in which there was no Taliban, a world without war. Even for an occasional practitioner of magical thinking like me, however, some realities can’t be changed.”
Prince Harry describes losing his virginity in “humiliating episode”
In his new memoir, “Spare,” Prince Harry says he lost his virginity in a “humiliating episode” with an “older lady” who “loved horses very much,” according to Sky News.
Harry says Meghan offended Kate ahead of her and Harry’s wedding
In the runup to Harry and Meghan’s wedding, Meghan offended Kate, who had recently given birth, by telling her she had “baby brain,” Harry writes in his memoir, “Spare.”
In the book, Harry says that Meghan had apologized, but that William pointed his finger at her.
“It’s rude, Meghan. These things are not done here,” William allegedly said.
“If you don’t mind, keep your finger out of my face,” Harry says Meghan responded.
Prince Harry says he took cocaine when he was 17 years old
“Of course I had been taking cocaine at that time,” Harry writes in his memoir “Spare,” according to Sky News. “At someone’s house, during a hunting weekend, I was offered a line, and since then I had consumed some more.”
Harry says that he didn’t enjoy the drug very much.
“It wasn’t very fun, and it didn’t make me feel especially happy as seemed to happen to others, but it did make me feel different, and that was my main objective. To feel. To be different. I was a seventeen-year-old willing to try almost anything that would alter the pre-established order. At least, that’s what I was trying to convince myself of.”
Prince Harry says William and Kate told him to wear controversial 2005 Nazi costume
Prince Harry says that Prince William and his then-girlfriend Kate urged him to wear a Nazi costume to a party in 2005, which sparked widespread outrage at the time.
According to Harry’s new memoir “Spare,” Harry was picking a costume and could choose between the Nazi outfit and a British pilot’s uniform. He asked William and Kate for their advice, and they said to choose the Nazi outfit.
When he tried on the Nazi costume in front of them, “they both howled,” Harry says. “‘Worse than Willy’s leotard outfit! Way more ridiculous!’ Which, again, was the point.”
When a photo of the then-20-year-old Harry in the Nazi outfit was published in a tabloid newspaper, it sparked widespread outrage, prompting him to issue a public apology and later call the experience “one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”
Prince Harry says Prince William physically assaulted him over Meghan tension
In his new memoir, “Spare,” Harry says William met him at his then-residence on the grounds of Kensington Palace, wishing to discuss “the whole rolling catastrophe” of their struggles with the media and their personal relationship.
When he arrived, Harry says, William was already angry and started “parrot[ing] the press narrative,” calling Meghan “abrasive,” “difficult” and “rude.”
William said Harry was not being rational, and Harry accused his older brother of acting like an heir and refusing to understand why Harry wasn’t happy to be treated poorly, just because he was not the next in line for the throne. William said he was trying to help Harry, who scoffed, further angering William, who moved towards him, swearing, Harry writes.
Harry says he then went into the kitchen and gave William a glass of water.
“He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me,” Harry writes. “It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor.I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”
Harry says that William urged him to hit him back, referencing fights they had as kids, but Harry refused, so William left the room but then returned after two minutes, “looking regretful, and apologized.”
Radio Free Europe’s return to prominence in Russia and former Soviet territories; Earth currently experiencing a sixth mass extinction, according to scientists; Promising new weight loss medication in short supply and often not covered by insurance.
King Charles III evoked memories Sunday of his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, as he broadcast his first Christmas message as monarch in a speech that also paid tribute to the “selfless dedication” of Britain’s public service workers, many of whom are in a fight with the government over pay.
Charles, 74, also empathized in the prerecorded message with people struggling to make ends meet “at a time of great anxiety and hardship.” Like some other parts of the world, the U.K. is wrestling with high inflation that has caused a cost-of-living crisis for many households.
In this image released on Dec. 23, 2022, King Charles III is seen during the recording of his first Christmas broadcast in the Quire of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Victoria Jones / Getty Images
The king’s first remarks, however, recalled his mother, who died in September at age 96 after 70 years on the throne.
“Christmas is a particularly poignant time for all of us who have lost loved ones,” Charles said. “We feel their absence that every familiar turn of the season and remember them in each cherished tradition.”
Charles immediately ascended to the throne upon the queen’s death. His coronation ceremony is scheduled for May.
For his televised Christmas message, he wore a dark blue suit. Unlike Elizabeth, who often sat at a desk to deliver the annual speech, Charles stood by a Christmas tree at St. George’s Chapel, a church on the grounds of Windsor Castle where his mother and his father, Prince Philip, were buried.
Charles said he shared with his mother “a belief in the extraordinary ability of each person to touch, with goodness and compassion, the lives of others and to shine a light in the world around them.”
“The essence of our community and the very foundation of our society” can be witnessed in “health and social care professionals and teachers and indeed all those working in public service whose skill and commitment are at the heart of our communities,” the king said.
Strikes this month by nurses, ambulance crews, teachers, postal workers and train drivers have put pressure on U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government. Opinion polls show a high level of support for the workers, especially nurses. Unions are seeking pay raises in line with inflation, whch stood at 10.7% in November.
Soaring food and energy prices in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have created financial strains for many individuals and families.
Speaking over video footage of food banks and other charity work, Charles expressed sympathy for “those at home finding ways to pay their bills and keep their families fed and warm.”
Charles also reached out to people of other faiths in the United Kingdom and across the British Commonwealth, saying the meaning of Jesus Christ’s birth crosses “the boundaries of faith and belief.”
Charles believes the monarchy can help to unite his country’s increasingly diverse ethnic groups and faiths. It is part of his effort to show that the institution still has relevance.
The six-minute message concluded with an appeal to heed “the everlasting light” which, Charles said, was a key aspect of Elizabeth’s faith in God and belief in people.
“So whatever faith you have or whether you have none, it is in this life-giving light and with the true humility that lies in our service to others that I believe we can find hope for the future,” he said.
The king made no reference to the recent clamor over this month’s Netflix documentary series about the acrimonious split from the royal family that accompanied the decision of his son Prince Harry and daughter-in-law Meghan to step back from royal duties and move across the Atlantic Ocean.
Video footage accompanying the Christmas message showed working members of the royal family at official events. Harry and Meghan didn’t appear, nor did Prince Andrew, who was stripped of his honorary military titles and removed as a working royal over his friendship with the notorious U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Andrew did, however, join Charles and other senior royals for a Christmas morning walk to a church located near the family’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk county England.
The king and his wife, Queen Consort Camilla, led family members to a service at St. Mary Magdalene Church. They included Prince William, Charles’ older son and heir to the throne, and William’s wife, Kate, and the couple’s three children, Prince George, 9, Princess Charlotte, 7, and Prince Louis, 4.
Joining them on the walk was Charles and Andrew’s younger brother, Prince Edward, and his wife, Sophie.
Prince Charles walks with his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, and other members of the royal family. They attended Christmas Day services at Sandringham Church on Dec. 25, 2022.
Samir Hussein/WireImage
After the family entered the church, congregants sang “God Save the King” followed by the Christmas hymn “O Come, All Ye Faithful.”
Sandringham has been the private country home of four generations of British monarchs for more than 160 years, but this was the royal family’s first Christmas there since 2019, according to Britain’s Press Association news agency.
Elizabeth spent her last two Christmases at Windsor Castle because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Crowds lined the streets near Sandringham to greet the royal family Sunday for its return to the holiday tradition.
“It will be in King Charles’ thoughts about his mother, about her legacy. They will be thinking about it over Christmas,” said John Loughrey, 67, who lives in south London and camped out overnight to be first in line. “It’s going to be a sad time and a happy time for them. That’s how it’s got to be.”
The final three episodes of the Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan” dropped early Thursday, with plenty of fireworks as the Sussexes give their side of the royal split. CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata reports on the allegations and revelations.
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The second half of Netflix’s documentary miniseries on Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, hit servers around the world Thursday morning. In it, the couple paint a stark picture of the animosity that grew between themselves and Harry’s closest family members amid what they say was racist and defamatory coverage by the British media. All of which, they say, drove them away.
Harry says the tension — which he and Meghan blame on the rigidity and self-preservation-at-all-cost mentality of the royal family, along with the mercilessness of Britain’s tabloid press — exploded in a meeting with his father, now King Charles III, and his brother Prince William shouting at him while his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II sat and looked on.
The royal family has declined to respond to the allegations in the series thus far, but it has denied Harry and Meghan’s allegations of racism and said the issues raised by the couple, “particularly that of race, are concerning.” Buckingham Palace has said it would address the matters privately.
Below are the top takeaways from the final instalments of the show, which has become Netflix’s most-streamed documentary ever. You can read here about the highlights from the first three episodes, which dropped last week.
“Stealing the limelight”
The couple say Harry’s family became unhappy during their trip to Australia, when Meghan started exuding star power. There were perceptions, they say – which echoed sentiments felt about Harry’s mother Diana during her marriage to then-Prince Charles – that the royal outsider was taking too much attention away from the more senior members of the family.
“The issue is when someone who’s marrying in, who should be a ‘supporting act,’ is then stealing the limelight or is doing the job better than those who were born to do this, then upsets people – it shifts the balance” Harry says in episode four of the series.
It was around then, the couple says, that the British tabloids started criticizing Meghan, and in particular painting her in a negative light against her sister-in-law Kate.
The couple have said for years that the negative media coverage took on racist overtones and had a deep impact on Meghan’s mental health. In the documentary, they say it hit her particularly hard when she realized that much of the British public accepted what the U.K. tabloids were printing as fact.
Meghan: “I needed help, but I wasn’t allowed”
Both Harry and Meghan portrayed the royal family as extremely reluctant to show any public signs of vulnerability — to the extent that Meghan claims she was told not to seek mental health support when she needed it most. The couple first revealed Meghan’s struggles with mental health during their interview with Oprah Winfrey last year.
Harry recounts a moment many years ago in the Netflix series when he said his mother Diana was crying in a car and her husband Charles told her she had “30 seconds” to straighten out her makeup, put on a smile and emerge to face the press.
Meghan, they say, found herself under the same kind of pressure, from both the press and the family, and it led her to suicidal thoughts.
“I thought if I wasn’t around anymore, this all stops,” she says in episode four.
“I remember her telling me that — that she’d thought about taking her own life,” says her mother, Doria Ragland, breaking down in tears in the episode. “That broke my heart… That’s not an easy one for a mom to hear.”
“I needed help, but I wasn’t allowed to,” says Meghan. “They were worried how it would look for the institution.”
Prince Harry says he knew his wife “was struggling,” but he “never thought it would get to that stage. I felt angry and ashamed. I didn’t deal with it very well… what took over my feelings was my royal role.”
“You are making people want to kill me”
Meghan and Harry have maintained for years that the British press deliberately attacked the mixed-race American duchess, casting her as an intruder and detractor.
“I saw cartoons of me on all fours and Meghan holding a dog collar,” recalls Harry in the series.
Meghan blames such reports for whipping up hatred of her that leaked from the press onto social media, pointing to one tweet in particular that said she “just needs to die, someone should do it.”
“You are making people want to kill me,” Meghan says in episode five of the press attacks. “It’s not just a tabloid, it’s not just some story, you are making me scared… That night, to be up and down in the middle of the night checking on security, that’s real — are my babies safe? And you’ve created it for what? Because you’re bored, or because it sells your papers? It’s real what you’re doing, and that’s what I don’t think people understand.”
The former head of counterterrorism policing in Britain said recently that the threats Meghan faced were indeed “disgusting and very real,” coming largely from the far-right.
A miscarriage, and “the unravelling”
Harry, Meghan and their associates say in episode five of the Netflix series that “everything changed” about their relations with other royal family members after the couple’s decision to take on Britain’s powerful tabloid press over what they saw as a barrage of negative, unfair articles.
It was sparked by the Daily Mail tabloid reprinting parts of a letter that Meghan wrote to her father — which she says in the series she was advised to write by “senior members of the family.”
“It was horrendous,” Meghan says, referring to the leaking of the letter to the media and the Daily Mail newspaper’s selective printing of portions of it. If the paper had printed the entire letter, she says, “it would it have painted a completely different picture,” as she says they removed “everything that described the media as manipulating” her father.
The couple say they met with senior royals and lawyers and pushed for quick legal action against the newspaper’s publisher.
“We had to draw a line,” says Meghan. But she says the royal family did nothing.
Recalling a conversation with Prince Charles, Harry says in the docuseries: “My father said to me: ‘Darling boy, you can’t take on the media, the media will always be the media.’”
That was a point on which Harry says he and his father “fundamentally disagree.”
“After months of saying she needs to do something about this, we took our own legal advice,” says the prince. Meghan says that after she and Harry’s 2019 decision to file a lawsuit against the Daily Mail independently, “everything changed… That litigation was probably the catalyst for all of the unravelling.”
Harry even blamed the Daily Mail article and the stress it caused to his wife for a miscarriage she suffered in July 2020.
“Bearing in mind the stress that that caused, the lack of sleep, and the timing of the pregnancy,” says Harry, “I can say from what I saw, that miscarriage was created by what they were trying to do to her.”
The couple eventually won their legal battle with the Daily Mail’s publisher, with British courts ruling that the paper had breached Meghan’s privacy.
A “terrifying” meeting, without Meghan
As the negative press coverage continued, the couple say they felt increasingly isolated from other members of Harry’s family, so they started looking west, considering a move out of the U.K. and abandoning their royal titles.
Meghan says in episode five that they “decided we were going to be stepping back — not stepping down, but stepping back.” But before they could agree to the details of a new arrangement with the family, Harry says that “key piece of information — that we were willing to relinquish our titles — had been leaked.”
As Meghan returned to Canada, where they were living at the time, to be with their son Archie, Harry was called to a meeting at his grandmother’s country estate in Sandringham.
“Imagine a roundtable conversation and you as the mom and the wife — and the target in many regards — aren’t able to have a seat at the table,” Meghan says of that meeting in the documentary, with Harry adding: “It was clear they planned it so you weren’t in the room.”
Harry says he went in hoping to arrange a “half in, half out” royal status for his nuclear family, “but it became very clear that goal was not up for discussion or debate.” He says the meeting descended into his father and brother, both future kings, shouting at him as the queen listened in silence.
“It was terrifying to have my brother screaming and shouting at me, and my father say things that simply weren’t true, and my grandmother quietly sit there and take it all in,” he says.
Harry says the meeting ended “without a solidified action plan. From their perspective, they had to believe it was more about us and the issues we had as opposed to their partner — the media — and the relationship that was causing so much pain for us. They saw what they wanted to see.”
“The saddest part of it,” Harry adds, “was this wedge created between me and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution side. And part of that I get — I understand that’s his inheritance and its already engrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survival of this institution.”
Harry suggests what came next was a final straw. Within just hours of the tense meeting, the tabloids were out with stories “that said part of the reason we were leaving was because Meghan had bullied us out.” He says the palace released a “joint statement” about the couple’s plans, but “no one had asked me to put that out.”
Harry says it was a sign that his family was willing to feed lies to the press to protect the royal institution — at the expense of the truth and himself and his wife.
“Within four hours they happened to lie to protect my brother, but in three years they never would protect us,” says the prince. It was then he says he knew they had to leave Britain, though he insists in the documentary that Meghan “never asked to leave.”
When Prince Harry and Meghan relinquished their royal duties in 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were soon faced with an urgent question: How to earn a living.
Although they were well off by ordinary standards, Forbes last year pegged their net worth at a fairly modest $10 million, including the remains of Harry’s inheritance from his mother, Princess Diana, and the equity the pair have in their California mansion. They were also financially cut off from the British Crown’s estimated $34 billion estate.
The answer, ironically, was to cash in on public fascination with the glamorous couple who dared to flee the royal family’s gilded cage, along with the incessant media scrutiny their official roles entailed. And despite the mixed critical reaction to their new Netflix documentary series, “Harry & Meghan,” what is certain is the venture has made them much richer.
Here’s what is known about the trailblazing royals’ sources of wealth and income.
Harry’s inheritance
Prince Harry told Oprah last year that the the couple had “no plan” when they moved to California in 2020 and relied solely on his inheritance from Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997.
“I’ve got all my mom left me, and without that we would not be able to do this,” Harry told Oprah.
According to the Independent, Diana left an estate worth nearly 13 million pounds to be split by her two sons, which grew to 20 million pounds by the time they could legally access it at age 30. That means Harry’s share was roughly 10 million pounds, or $12.2 million at current exchange rates.
That money was partly diminished by the $3 million they repaid to cover renovations made on the couple’s U.K. residences — costs that were initially covered by British taxpayers.
Harry and Meghan have about $5 million in equity on their mansion in Montecito, California, which carries a mortgage worth nearly $10 million, although they are reportedly looking to move, according to TMZ.
Meghan’s acting
Before the couple married, Meghan was an actor, then known as Meghan Markle, and ran a lifestyle blog. The bulk of her income came from her appearances on the USA Network drama series “Suits,” for which she was paid $50,000 per episode.
She entered the marriage with a net worth of about $5 million, according to the Independent.
Netflix deal
After breaking with the royal family, Harry and Meghan founded Archewell Productions, an offshoot of their nonprofit organization, with the stated goal of creating “programming that informs, elevates and inspires.” The company signed a multiyear production deal with Netflix estimated to be worth between $100 million and $150 million, according to Deadline and Us Weekly.
The first three episodes of their first documentary series — an intimate look at their personal lives — was released this week.
Under the multiyear deal with Netflix, the couple will produce documentaries, scripted shows, feature films and children’s programming, although they’ve said reality shows are out, according to Town & Country. One series in development follows participants in the Invictus Games, a charity founded by Harry that offers athletic events to injured military veterans, CNN reported last year.
But planned animated series created by Meghan, known by its working title “Pearl,” was one of several programs scrapped by the streaming service this year, as a result of cutbacks.
A memoir with Penguin
Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” which the Associated Press dubbed “an object of obsessive anticipation,” is set to be released by Penguin Random House next month. According to the publisher, the book will deliver “raw, unflinching honesty” as well as “insight, revelation, self-examination and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.”
Harry received an advance of $20 million last year when he sold the book, Page Six reported. The deal includes as many as three other books from the couple, as reported by Vanity Fair. The publisher has also agreed to make two charitable donations totaling $1.6 million as part of the deal, th BBC reported.
Meghan last year also published a children’s book, The Bench. It’s unknown how much she was paid for it, but one branding expert told the Daily Mail the advance could be as high as $600,000.
Spotify podcasts
Through Archewell Audio, Meghan and Harry also produce podcasts for the streaming service Spotify under a three-year deal. Meghan’s first podcast with the company, a series called “Archetypes,” has featured guests such as Judd Apatow, Amanda Gorman, Mindy Kaling, Issa Rae and Serena Williams. This week the series won the People’s Choice Award for podcasting.
Forbes and the New York Post have estimated the deal to be worth between $15 million and $25 million, respectively— a stark difference from what most creators earn on the platform, which often amounts to a fraction of a penny per stream.
The couple also have plenty of other creative endeavors whose financial value is unknown. Before Harry left the royal family, he had inked a deal with Oprah to executive produce an Apple TV series on mental health. Harry and Meghan have also signed on with speaking agency Harry Walker, whose roster of A-listers includes the Clintons, the Obamas and Oprah.
To be sure, the young couple and their two children likely have substantial expenses, not least of which includes security services. Given this reality, and the uncertain value of some recent mega-deals, estimates for their net worth vary widely — from as low as $10 million, according to Forbes, to $60 million, according to Hello and Women’s Health Magazine.
But with a budding media empire taking shape, it’s likely that number will rise sharply in coming years.
It all started with a blind date and one question: “Is he nice?” Now — six years, two children and a royal exit later — one of the world’s most famous couples, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, are revealing new details of their relationship and what led them to step back from the royal family.
The six-part Netflix documentary “Harry & Meghan” is already controversial, with trailers revealing provocative soundbites and emotional moments from their lives, and promising much more. The first three episodes of the docuseries drop Thursday, with the remainder of the episodes released on December 15.
Here’s what to know about the couple at the center of the media storm.
These photos show Meghan Markle attending a movie premiere in London in 2013 and Prince Harry in London in 2016.
JUSTIN TALLIS, ANDREW COWIE/AFP via Getty Images
July 2016: Meeting on a blind date
The start of Harry and Meghan’s romance was far from the royal norm. The British royal and the American actress first met when a mutual friend set them up on a blind date in 2016, with neither of them having any idea who the other was. In fact, the only question Meghan had for their mutual friend prior to that first date was, “Is he nice?”
“Because if he wasn’t kind, it just, it didn’t seem like it would make sense,” she told the BBC in 2017. “And so we went and met for a drink and then I think very quickly into that we said, ‘Well, what are we doing tomorrow?’”
They quickly had two more “back-to-back” dates in London, Prince Harry told BBC News, and within a few weeks, Meghan traveled to Botswana with the prince, where they “camped out with each other under the stars.”
“It was fantastic, it was absolutely amazing to get to know her as quickly as I did,” Harry said.
October 2016: First reports of their relationship
The first report of the couple’s relationship appeared in the British tabloid The Sunday Express on October 31, 2016. Citing anonymous sources, the outlet report that Harry, then 32, was “besotted” with Meghan, who was 35 at the time.
November 2016: Prince Harry blasts tabloids for racist and sexist “abuse and harassment”
After that first story on their relationship, outlets went wild with the news, some of it rife with racist and sexist commentary. One tabloid, The Sun, published a cover story referring to Meghan as “Harry girl’s on Pornhub,” making it seem as though the actress had posted sex tapes, when in reality someone else had uploaded steamy scenes from her USA network show “Suits” to the Pornhub website.
This, among other headlines, prompted the royal family to issue an unusual public statement about relationship, blasting the media for the tone of its coverage.
“The past week has seen a line crossed. [Harry’s] girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Some of this has been very public – the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments,” the Palace said in a statement.
“Some of it has been hidden from the public — the nightly legal battles to keep defamatory stories out of papers; her mother having to struggle past photographers in order to get to her front door; the attempts of reporters and photographers to gain illegal entry to her home and the calls to police that followed; the substantial bribes offered by papers to her ex-boyfriend; the bombardment of nearly every friend, co-worker, and loved one in her life.”
The statement said Harry was worried about Meghan’s safety and was “deeply disappointed” he hadn’t been able to protect her from the maelstrom.
“It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms. Markle should be subjected to such a storm,” the statement said. “He knows commentators will say this is ‘the price she has to pay’ and that ‘this is all part of the game’. He strongly disagrees — it is her life and his.”
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry attend a wheelchair tennis match at the Invictus Games on Sept. 25, 2017 in Toronto, Canada.
Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage
September 2017: Meghan’s first big interview and public appearance with Harry
Meghan Markle’s first major interview about her royal romance with the prince was published in September 2017 in Vanity Fair, during which she discussed the “waves” of challenges that had emerged in the couple’s first year.
“We’re two people who are really happy and in love. We were very quietly dating for about six months before it became news, and I was working during that whole time, and the only thing that changed was people’s perception,” she told the magazine. “Nothing about me changed. I’m still the same person that I am, and I’ve never defined myself by my relationship.”
That interview led British betting-exchange Betfair to promote odds on when the couple would get engaged. Soon after the interview’s publication, Meghan and Harry made their first official public appearance together as a couple, holding hands at the Invictus Games, an event founded by Harry to help wounded veterans.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle hold hands at a photocall to announce their engagement at Kensington Palace in London on Nov. 27, 2017
Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage
Many key members of the royal family, including Charles and Harry’s brother Prince William, announced their excitement about the news.
May 2018: A historic wedding at St. George’s Chapel
Harry and Meghan’s wedding was lavish, historic and somewhat controversial. Meghan became the first American in decades to marry into the royal family. The last to do so was Wallis Simpson, who married the former Edward VIII after he abdicated the throne in 1936.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex share a kiss after their wedding at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018 in Windsor, England.
WPA Pool / Getty Images
Meghan also became the first known mixed-race woman to marry into the royal family.
The wedding ceremony included the first African American presiding bishop to help officiate a royal wedding, Michael Curry.
Upon their marriage, they were given the titles Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex visit Bondi Beach on October 19, 2018 in Sydney, Australia.
Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage
October 2018: Couple expecting their first child
The royal family announced on October 15, 2018 that Harry and Meghan were expecting their first child together.
Palace officials said the couple “appreciated all of the support they have received from people around the world since their wedding in May and are delighted to be able to share this happy news with the public.”
May 2019: Baby Archie is born
On May 6, 2019, Meghan delivered a baby boy they named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
Archie became the first known child of mixed-race heritage to be born into the royal family. The celebration was somewhat overshadowed, as Meghan later revealed that there were “several conversations” by royal insiders speculating on “how dark” the baby’s skin color would be.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and their baby son Archie Mountbatten-Windsor during their royal tour of South Africa on September 25, 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Toby Melville – Pool/Getty Images
October 2019: Documentary reveals chaos behind the public spotlight
ITV News unveiled a documentary featuring interviews with the royal couple, who discussed their recent trip to Africa, what it was like for Harry to retrace the steps his mother took just months before her tragic death, and the couple’s ongoing battle with the press. For the prince, the constant turmoil with the media felt triggering, as it was a paparazzi-filled car chase that led to his mother’s death in 1997, when he was 12.
“I think being part of this family — in this role, in this job — every single time I see a camera, every single time I hear a click, every single time I see a flash, it takes me straight back,” Harry said in the interview. “In that respect, it’s the worst reminder of her life as opposed to the best.”
Meghan was also asked of her struggles with the press.
“Not many people have asked if I’m OK,” she told ITV’s Tom Bradby, tearfully agreeing that she had been struggling. “It’s a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes.”
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex depart Canada House in London on January 7, 2020.
Neil Mockford/GC Images
January 2020: Plans to step away from “senior” roles
A few months after those interviews, Harry and Meghan made the stunning announcement that they would be stepping away from “senior” royal roles. They said they would work to become financially independent and split their time between the U.K. and North America. They made the decision, they said, in part to “raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter.”
On their new website, Sussex Royal, couple said they would no longer be using the British pool system of royal correspondents, which, despite being “regarded internationally as credible sources,” actually help in the “amplifying of frequent misreporting.”
(L-R) Prince Charles; Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall; Queen Elizabeth II; Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; Prince Harry, Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, on July 10, 2018 in London, England.
Chris Jackson/Chris Jackson/Getty Images
February 2021: Official split from the royal family
After months of speculation, Buckingham Palace announced that Harry and Meghan would not be returning as working members of the royal family.
“Following conversations with The Duke, The Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of the Royal Family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service,” a Buckingham Palace spokesman said. “…While all are saddened by their decision, The Duke and Duchess remain much loved members of the family.”
A spokesperson for the couple also released a statement at the time, saying that they would “remain committed to their duty and service to the U.K. and around the world,” regardless of their “official role.”
“We can all live a life of service,” the statement said. “Service is universal.”
The couple eventually settled into a new home in California and announced a series of new projects, including deals with Spotify and Netflix.
March 2021: Explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey interviews Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on a CBS primetime special that aired on March 7, 2021.
Harpo Productions/Joe Pugliese via Getty Images
In a stunning interview, Harry and Meghan sat down with Oprah Winfrey in a prime-time special on CBS and spoke out about the numerous struggles that took place behind closed doors at the palace. Among other things, they recounted conversations about “how dark” their son Archie’s skin color would be, and described the lack of support that resulted in Meghan feeling that she “just didn’t want to be alive anymore.”
They also shared that despite many tabloid suggestions, Harry had a “really good relationship” with his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. However, he said he was “disappointed” by actions of his father, and said he and his older brother, Prince William, were on “different paths.”
While they unveiled a slew of accusations and revelations in the interview, they also disclosed a happy development: they were expecting a baby girl.
“It’s a girl,” Prince Harry told Winfrey during the interview. The couple had announced the pregnancy on Valentine’s Day — 37 years to the day after Harry’s mother, the late Princess Diana, announced her pregnancy.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex attend the 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Gala at New York Hilton on December 6, 2022 in New York City.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
June 2021: Baby Lilibet is born
The couple’s second child was born on June 4, 2021. They named her Lilibet Diana — Lilibet being the family nickname for Queen Elizabeth, and Diana in honor of Harry’s late mother.
December 2022: The “full truth” in controversial Netflix docuseries
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex say they’ll be revealing much more about what’s gone on behind the scenes of their relationship and within the royal family, with the premiere of the Netflix docuseries “Harry & Meghan.” In a trailer for the series, Prince Harry teased that only they know the “full truth” about what has happened over the past six years.
“No one knows the full truth. We know the full truth,” Prince Harry says, later intimating that he’ll expose some sordid stories of royal life.
“There’s a hierarchy of the family. You know, there’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories,” he says. “…It’s a dirty game.”
London — Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, accepted an award for their human rights work in New York on Tuesday night, just two days ahead of the release of a documentary series in which they are expected to outline their experiences as members of the British royal family. It’s widely expected that the couple will make further revelations in the Netflix series about the racism they say Meghan has suffered at the hands of Britain’s tabloid press, and even from members of the royal family.
“They’ve stood up, they’ve talked about racial justice and they’ve talked about mental illness in a way that was incredibly brave,” Kerry Kennedy, president of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation, said at the organization’s awards gala on Tuesday night, according to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper.
The couple was presented with the “Ripple of Hope” award alongside other honorees, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At the event, it was announced that the couple’s Archewell Foundation would be launching a student film award for projects about women human rights defenders, in collaboration with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation.
“For Meghan to get out there on national television and normalize discussion of mental health, at this point, is incredibly important and very brave,” Kennedy said at the gala, according to the Telegraph.
“Together we know that a ripple of hope can turn into a wave of change,” the Sussexes said in a statement announcing the collaborative film project.
The award came days before the release of the couple’s highly anticipated Netflix documentary series, which has prompted widespread speculation over what new accusations it might level at other members of the British royal family.
Since Harry and Meghan stepped down from their roles as “working royals” and moved to the United States, they have spoken out about the racism Meghan says she experienced during her time living in the U.K., including from Harry’s family, and her struggles with her mental health.
In one trailer for the upcoming series, Harry accuses the royal family of leaking stories to the press.
Netflix’s upcoming docuseries “Harry & Meghan” is proving to be an emotional and nail-biting rollercoaster even before its release. In a new trailer that dropped on Monday, Prince Harry teased that they’ll reveal “the full truth” behind what led to the couple’s split from the royal family.
“No one knows the full truth,” Prince Harry says in the trailer, which got nearly 200,000 views within just a few hours of its release on YouTube and 1.7 million on Twitter. “We know the full truth.”
The docuseries is set to be released in six episodes, combined in two “volumes” — the first coming this Thursday, Dec. 8, and the rest on Dec. 15. Netflix calls it “an unprecedented and in-depth documentary series” that allows the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to share their side of the story about their relationship and eventual exit from the royal family.
Harry & Meghan. A Netflix Global Event. Volume I: December 8 Volume II: December 15 pic.twitter.com/WpFzVEC7Yx
Along with interviews with Harry and Meghan themselves, the series will also include commentary from historians and friends and family, most of whom, according to Netflix, “have never spoken publicly before about what they witnessed.”
The latest trailer comes just days after the first sneak peek for the series dropped. While the first trailer promised an emotional look at the couple’s relationship and experiences, the latest provides a glimpse into the turmoil and alleged manipulation that happened behind the scenes.
“There’s a hierarchy of the family. You know, there’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories,” Prince Harry says in the trailer. “…It’s a dirty game.”
With footage of his mother, Princess Diana, being hounded by the press, Harry continues to say, “The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution, this feeding frenzy.”
Diana, Princess of Wales, was famously killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997 as she was being chased by paparazzi.
“I was terrified,” Harry says in the trailer. “I didn’t want history to repeat itself.”
That moment in the trailer was only amplified by the words of Meghan: “I realized, ‘they’re never gonna protect you.’”
Images of tabloids, paparazzi jostling with cameras, and the couple clearly going through times of distress continue on the screen as commentators provide snippets of analysis.
“There was a war against Meghan to suit other people’s agendas,” one woman says, followed by a man saying, “It’s about hatred. it’s about race.”
Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have been relatively open about their struggles with the palace. They ultimately decided to step back as senior members of the family in 2020 and have worked to become financially independent. They now live in California.
Last year, Harry told “The Late Late Show” host James Corden that life in the U.K. as members of the royal family was “toxic.” Months later in an exclusive interview with Oprah Winfrey, the couple detailed how they were treated by members of the royal family as their relationship progressed and when Meghan became pregnant with their first child, Archie.
“We did what we had to do,” Harry told Winfrey about the decision to leave the royal family.
Netflix gave a first look at a new docuseries featuring Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. The streaming service released a trailer for “Harry & Meghan” on Thursday.
The teaser features several black and white pictures of the couple in various stages of their relationship, including pictures of their wedding reception, Meghan’s pregnancy and the couple attending royal events together.
Prince Harry‘s memoir, an object of obsessive anticipation worldwide since first announced last year, is coming out Jan. 10. The book will be called “Spare” and is being billed by Penguin Random House as an account told with “raw, unflinching honesty” and filled with “insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.”
We are excited to announce the remarkably personal and emotionally powerful story of Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex.
In a statement released Thursday, Penguin Random House summoned memories of the stunning death in 1997 of Prince Harry’s mother, Diana, and of Harry and his brother, William, “walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow – and horror.”
“As Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling – and how their lives would play out from that point on,” the statement reads in part.
The memoir’s title is an apparent reference to Prince Harry’s being a royal “spare,” not the first in line to succession. William, Prince of Wales, is next in line.
The 416-page book will come out in 16 languages, from Dutch to Portuguese, and also will be released in an audio edition read by Prince Harry. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Harry, the Duke of Sussex, will be using proceeds from “Spare” to donate to British charities. He has already given $1.5 million to Sentebale, an organization he co-founded with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho to help children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana affected by HIV/AIDS.
Penguin Random House identifies Prince Harry as “a husband, father, humanitarian, military veteran, mental wellness advocate, and environmentalist.”
Royals watchers and the public at large have speculated endlessly since the book was first announced in July 2021, billed as “intimate and heartfelt” and tentatively scheduled for this year.
The Duke of Sussex had already revealed a news-making willingness to discuss his private life when he and his American-born wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were interviewed for a March 2021 broadcast by their neighbor in Santa Barbara, California, Oprah Winfrey. The couple spoke of Meghan’s deep unhappiness with her new life in England, the alleged racism within the royal family and Harry’s fear that his wife’s life might be endangered had they remained in his native country.
In 1992, Diana worked with author Andrew Morton on her explosive memoir “Diana: Her True Story,” in which she described at length her unhappy marriage to the future King Charles, Harry’s father.
Harry and Meghan stepped back from their royal duties in 2020 and moved to the U.S. Harry told Winfrey that his family cut him off financially and that he helped pay for his security with money left to him by his mother. They have launched numerous initiatives, including a Netflix production deal and the “impact-driven non-profit” Archewell Foundation.
The book’s delay led to rumors that Harry was hesitating to say too much about his family, or was perhaps revising the narrative after his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, died in September. He has spoken of being estranged from his brother, William, although the siblings and their wives appeared in public together during the mourning period following the queen’s death.
According to one veteran royal correspondent, however, it was a moment in time, not a rift completely mended.
“I think there are some major unresolved issues at foot,” Roya Nikkhah, a royal correspondent who’s reported on the monarchy for over a decade, told CBS News. “For William and Harry to agree to come together and do that walkabout was not plain sailing.”
In his first address to the nation as monarch, King Charles III seemed to offer an olive branch to Harry, saying: “I also want to express my love for Harry and Meghan, as they continue to build their lives overseas.”
But he also highlighted the brothers’ divergent paths, promoting William to the role of Prince of Wales, which has traditionally been assigned to heirs-in-waiting, and Kate to Princess of Wales, a title last used by Princess Diana.
“Had Harry and Meghan not stepped back from royal duties when they did, they would have stepped up, too, in terms of positioning, role, seniority,” said Nikkhah. “He’s still the son of the king, but he’s hanging out with movie stars and making Netflix shows in America.”
