London — Prince Harry made a rare trip back to the United Kingdom this week, and while most of the visit was filled with public events at charities the Duke of Sussex supports, he also met with his father, King Charles III, for the first time since February 2024.
Harry has said previously that he wants to rebuild his relationship with his family, which has been strained since he and his wife Meghan formally stepped down from their roles as working royals and moved to California.
This meeting was at Buckingham Palace, the monarch’s official residence in London. CBS News has been told they met privately, for tea, but that all other details of the encounter were private.
While Harry hasn’t been a “working royal” for a couple years, he seemed keen to show on this visit to his home nation that he is still prince charming.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, arrives for a visit to the Community Recording Studio in St. Anns, Sept. 9, 2025, in Nottingham, England.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty
The four-day visit was a clear effort to show he hasn’t lost any love for the causes he holds dear, including supporting sick children and wounded military veterans.
Absent on this trip were Harry’s wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their children, Archie and Lilibet.
In an interview with CBS News’ partner network BBC News in May, Harry said he couldn’t envision bringing them all back to the U.K. with him since he has lost a legal bid to have his downgraded state security detail restored.
Harry said his battle with the U.K. government to get full state-security restored for himself and his family during visits back to Britain caused a rift between himself and his father.
“Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has. He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff, but it would be nice to reconcile,” he told the BBC.
That reconciliation may have begun on Wednesday. Harry arrived at Buckingham Palace in the afternoon and was seen leaving less than an hour later.
Prince Harry is seen in the back of a vehicle as he arrives at Clarence House, the official residence of his father King Charles III, Sept. 10, 2025, in London, England.
Ben Montgomery/Getty
The father and son relationship is not the only bond that has been strained by the circumstances of Harry and Meghan’s departure — and the prince’s tell-all book “Spare,” and their interviews, and a documentary, in which they were highly critical of their treatment at the hands of the royal family.
It has been even longer since Harry met with his brother, Prince William, who is next in line to sit on the British throne.
This week, Prince William and Harry appeared at charity events at the same time, only about 10 miles from each other. But those who follow the royal family say they remain far apart.
“William and Harry haven’t seen each other in person since 2022, since the late queen’s funeral. And I believe they haven’t spoken personally for the same period. So, there’s been no contact,” Roya Nikkhah, the royal editor for the Sunday Times newspaper, told CBS News on Tuesday. “There’s no chance that William and Harry are going to meet up anytime soon… There is no desire on either side to do that. You know, the brothers haven’t seen each other for such a long time and relations are as bad as they’ve ever been — non-existent.”
London — Britain’s Prince Harry landed back in the U.K. on Monday, the third anniversary of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II’s death, for a week of public charity engagements, but it was unclear whether he would meet with his father, King Charles III, or his brother, Prince William, neither of whom he has seen in months.
The Duke of Sussex’s packed itinerary began with an award ceremony on Monday for WellChild, a charity for seriously ill children that he supports. Tuesday saw him pay a visit to the central city of Nottingham, with a focus on young people affected by violence, and on Wednesday and Thursday the prince is expected to hold private meetings with representatives from other charities he supports.
Harry’s trip will reportedly be covered at close hand by certain media organizations seen as friendly to the Sussexes. But the question dominating most coverage in Britain has been whether Harry will meet with his father, the king.
Prince Harry arrives at the WellChild Awards 2025, at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, England, Sept. 8, 2025.
Neil Mockford/GC Images/Getty
King Charles and Prince Harry last saw each other in February 2024, during a half-hour meeting following the king’s announcement of his cancer diagnosis.
Harry has been largely estranged from his family since he and wife Meghan moved to the U.S. and spoke out against what they said was racist treatment, including in the prince’s book “Spare.”
“I think if there is any chance of any sort of rapprochement between Charles and Harry, they would need to meet this week,” Roya Nikkhah, the royal editor for the Sunday Times newspaper, told CBS News on Tuesday. “I mean, they’ve not seen each other for 19 months. It’s a very long time.”
“We don’t know when Harry will next be back here. So I think if there isn’t a meeting this week, that gives you an indication that things are really a lot worse on the king’s side than we would hope,” said Nikkhah.
She said a meeting during the prince’s current visit with his brother, future king Prince William, seem much less likely.
From left to right, Catherine, Princess of Wales, William, Prince of Wales, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, are seen on the Long Walk at Windsor Castle, Sept. 10, 2022, before meeting well-wishers amid funeral services for the late Queen Elizabeth II.
KIRSTY O’CONNOR/POOL/AFP/Getty
“William and Harry haven’t seen each other in person since 2022, since the late queen’s funeral. And I believe they haven’t spoken personally for the same period. So there’s been no contact,” Nikkhah said. “There’s no chance that William and Harry are going to meet up anytime soon… There is no desire on either side to do that. You know, the brothers haven’t seen each other for such a long time and relations are as bad as they’ve ever been — non-existent.”
Harry’s wife Meghan last visited the U.K. in September 2022, and the couple’s children, Archie and Lilibet, have not been in Britain since June that year, for the queen’s platinum jubilee celebrations.
“I can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point. And the things they’re going to miss, well, everything… I miss the U.K.,” Harry told CBS News’ news partner network BBC News in May, after losing a legal challenge to have state-provided security increased during visits to his home country.
“I don’t know how much longer my father has. He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff… Of course, some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book. Of course, they will never forgive lots of things. But I would love a reconciliation with my family.”
Prince William was in New York on Tuesday for his Earthshot prize summit to announce the finalists for the 2023 prize. The prizes go to people who offer “evidence-based solutions” to climate challenges. Meg Oliver reports.
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Prince William is visiting New York on Tuesday during Climate Week, the climate summit that coincides with the United Nations General Assembly, and is announcing the finalists for the Earthshot Prize, his climate-focused charity.
Britain’s Prince William, Prince of Wales in New York on Sept. 18, 2023.
/ Getty Images
The 15 finalists for the 2023 Earthshot Prize include the following groups:
Coastal 500, a group of U.S. mayors of and local government leaders working to restore ocean habitats and advocating for coastal protection internationally;
WildAid Marine Programme, a global nonprofit based in the U.S. that addresses the world’s ocean conservation needs;
Circ Inc., which created a solution to enable the recycling of polycotton fabrics, which make up half of all textile waste;
Aquacycl, which uses microbial technology to make the treatment of industrial wastewater more accessible, more efficient, and less polluting; and
Boomitra, which is removing emissions and boosting farmer profits by incentivising land restoration through a verified carbon-credit marketplace.
Other finalists come from the United Kingdom, Peru, Brazil, Sierra Leone, Hong Kong, South Africa and Australia.
The prize categories are: Protecting and Restoring Nature; Cleaning the Air; Reviving the Oceans; Building a Waste-Free World; and Fixing Our Climate.
On Monday, William visited Governors Island in New York Harbor to see the efforts of the Billion Oyster Project, which is working to rebuild New York’s once-abundant oyster reefs.
William also met with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday, according to the U.N.
What is the Earthshot Prize?
In 2020, Prince William launched what Kensington Palace called “the most prestigious global environment prize in history,” known as the Earthshot Prize. William said he was inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” pledge to get Americans on the moon.
William’s father, King Charles III, has long championed environmental issues.
Every year from 2021 until 2030, the Earthshot Prize Council will award a prize to five winners offering “evidence-based solutions” for each of the five broad Earthshot objectives:
Protect and restore nature
Clean our air
Revive our oceans
Build a waste-free world
Fix our climate
According to Kensington Palace, each of the five annual winners will receive a reward of about $1.3 million, “that will be used to support agreed environmental and conservation projects as well as large-scale public recognition and significant support to scale their solution.”
The awards will be handed out in November in Singapore. Last year’s ceremony was held in Boston.
Watch the story of one of the 2022 winners, on a mission to replace single-use plastic with seaweed, in the video below:
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the duke and duchess of Sussex, “stepped back” from their royal duties in 2020. But last month Prince Harry attended his father’s coronation ceremony…it was an awkward appearance for the 38-year-old prince after the release earlier this year of his searing memoir “Spare” – the title a nod to his backup role in the line of succession. As we first reported in January, 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, Queen 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.
As we first reported in January, Prince Harry’s memoir “Spare” is anything but spare in its unflattering portrayal of the royal family, especially his stepmother Camilla. 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.
In December, 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 back in January. The palace has still not made any official comment about Prince Harry’s book.
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.
Amman, Jordan — Jordan’s highly anticipated royal wedding day got underway on Thursday with the surprise announcement that Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate had arrived to witness the nuptials of Crown Prince Hussein and his Saudi Arabian bride. The attendance of the British royals had been kept under wraps and was only confirmed by Jordanian state media a few hours before the start of the palace ceremony.
The wedding of Jordan’s 28-year-old heir to the throne and Rajwa Alseif, a 29-year-old architect linked to her own country’s monarch, emphasizes continuity in an Arab state prized for its longstanding stability. The festivities, which are to start Thursday afternoon, also introduce Hussein to a wider global audience.
Jordan’s Crown Prince Hussein, second left, sits with his father, King Abdullah II, third left, during a celebration in Amman, Jordan, May 31, 2023, a day before the crown prince’s wedding to Saudi architect Rajwa Alseif.
Raad Adayleh/AP
The celebration buttresses the royal family’s order of succession, refreshes its image after a palace feud and may even help resource-poor Jordan forge a strategic bond with its oil-rich neighbor, Saudi Arabia.
On Thursday morning, Saudi wedding guests and tourists — the men wearing white dishdasha robes and the women in brightly colored abayas — filtered through the sleek marbled lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman. Noura Al Sudairi, an aunt of the bride, was wearing sweatpants and sneakers on her way to breakfast.
“We are all so excited, so happy about this union,” she said. “Of course it’s a beautiful thing for our families, and for the relationship between Jordan and Saudi Arabia.”
A poster with pictures of Crown Prince Hussein and his fiancee, Saudi architect Rajwa Alseif, is seen on a road in Amman, Jordan, May 31, 2023.
Nasser Nasser/AP
Excitement over the nuptials — Jordan’s biggest royal event in years — has been building in the capital of Amman, where congratulatory banners of Hussein and his beaming bride adorn buses and hang over winding hillside streets. Shops had competing displays of royal regalia. Royal watchers speculated about which dress designer Alseif would select- still an official secret,
Nancy Tirana, a 28-year-old law intern, said she spent the last week scrutinizing Alseif’s every move and stitch of clothing.
“She’s just so beautiful, so elegant, and it’s clear from her body language how much she loves the queen,” she said, referring to Hussein’s glamorous mother, Rania. “I feel like all of Jordan is getting married,” Tirana gushed as she ate mansaf, Jordan’s national dish of milky mutton and rice, before heading to a wedding-themed concert.
Jordan’s 11 million citizens have watched the young crown prince rise in prominence in recent years, as he increasingly joined his father, King Abdullah II, in public appearances. Hussein has graduated from Georgetown University, joined the military and gained some global recognition speaking at the U.N. General Assembly. His wedding, experts say, marks his next crucial rite of passage.
Crown Prince Hussein attends a celebration in Amman, Jordan, May 31, 2023, a day before his wedding to Saudi architect Rajwa Alseif.
Royal Hashemite Court via AP
“It’s not just a marriage, it’s the presentation of the future king of Jordan,” said political analyst Amer Sabaileh. “The issue of the crown prince has been closed.”
The wedding may create a brief feel-good moment for Jordanians during tough economic times, including persistent youth unemployment and an ailing economy.
Palace officials have turned the event – a week after Jordan’s 77th birthday – into something of a PR campaign. Combining tradition and modernity, the royal family introduced a wedding hashtag (#Celebrating Al Hussein) and omnipresent logo that fuses the couple’s initials into the Arabic words “We rejoice”
Photos and reels from Alseif’s henna party — a traditional pre-wedding celebration featuring the bride and her female friends and relatives — and the couple’s engagement ceremony in Saudi Arabia last summer have splashed across state-linked media.
The kingdom declared Thursday a public holiday so crowds of people could gather after the wedding service to wave at the couple’s motorcade of red Land Rover jeeps — a nod to the traditional procession of horse riders clad in red coats during the reign of the country’s founder, King Abdullah I. Tens of thousands of well-wishers are expected to flock to free concerts and cultural events. Huge screens have been set up nationwide for crowds to watch the occasion unfold.
The signing of the marriage contract will take place at Zahran Palace in Amman, which hasn’t seen such pomp and circumstance since 1993, when, on a similarly sunny June day, Abdullah married Rania, who was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents. Decades earlier, Abdullah’s father, the late King Hussein, sealed his vows in the same garden with his second wife, the British citizen Antoinette Gardiner.
In addition to the Prince and Princess of Wales, the guest list includes an array of foreign aristocrats and dignitaries, including senior royals from Europe and Asia, as well as First Lady Jill Biden and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry. Other likely attendees include Saudi aristocrats, as Alseif’s mother traces her roots to the influential wife of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Her billionaire father owns a major construction firm in the kingdom.
After the ceremony, the wedding party will move to Al Husseiniya Palace, a 30-minute drive away, for a reception, entertainment and a state banquet. The royals are expected to greet more than 1,700 guests at the reception.
Experts consider the marriage an advantageous alliance for the Hashemites, historic rivals of the Al Saud family to the east. Jordan has recently sought closer ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab petrostates, which once doled out billions of dollars to the aid-dependent country but since have reined in their spending.
Even as restaurants blared call-and-response Arabic wedding songs and cars honked in celebration downtown, some signaled the royal fairy tale was fraught as Jordanians struggle to make ends meet.
Osama, a 25-year-old bookseller, was thrilled about the occasion and festooned his car and shop windows with portraits of the royal family. But he also knew reality would return quickly.
“Of course, it’s joyful,” he said, declining to give his last name for fear of reprisals. “But in a couple days, we’ll just go back to our problems.”
King Charles III and his wife, Queen Camilla, were both formally crowned in the first coronation ceremony the United Kingdom has seen since Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953.
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Click here for a schedule of the expected events during the hours-long coronation processions and ceremony.
Arrests as anti-monarchy protests planned for coronation day
Protests against the British monarchy were planned around the United Kingdom for the day of the coronation by the anti-monarchy group Republic. Early Saturday morning, Republic said its leader was among several people arrested as they showed up to stage a demonstration at London’s Trafalgar Square.
“They’ve arrested six of our organizers and seized hundreds of placards,” an activist with the group told the AFP news agency. “They won’t tell us why they’ve arrested them or where they’re being held.”
This morning, @GrahamSmith_ and 5 members of our team were arrested. Hundreds of placards were seized. Is this democracy? #NotMyKing#Coronation
Police did not immediately confirm any arrests, but they had warned against any attempts to disrupt the day’s proceedings. There were reports that some protesters had planned to try to do just that, interfering with the processions, according to U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden. He said the government had received intelligence that some people might try to spook horses on the procession route by sounding rape alarms.
Republic wants Britain’s monarch to be replaced as the official head of state by an elected official. Republic is either organizing or promoting peaceful rallies in England and Scotland.
Protesters hold placards with the message “Not my king” before Britain’s King Charles III arrives to attend the annual Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in London, March 13, 2023.
Frank Augstein/AP
Click here to read a full story on the planned protests.
What’s the point, and what happens at a coronation?
Coronation ceremonies came out of an historic need to bring stability to European monarchies amid competing claims to their thrones, as well as traditions of church involvement in the state. They do not take place immediately after the death of the previous monarch to allow time for the country to grieve. The ceremony is largely religious, and it does not bring King Charles any further privileges as the monarch, which he has been since the moment his mother died.
British coronations are carried out by the Anglican Church, otherwise known as the Church of England. The only part of the coronation ceremony required under British law is the Coronation Oath. The exact wording of which has varied over the centuries, and it has been updated for Charles to reflect a more modern Britain.
After the oath, the king will be anointed with holy oil by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who will pour the oil onto a spoon and anoint Charles’ hands, head and breast. Then, Charles will be given the royal robe, the orb, the coronation ring, the sceptre and the rod of his position. Finally, at the “moment of coronation,” St. Edward’s Crown will be placed on his head.
Here’s the schedule of events for coronation day
King Charles and Camilla, his queen consort, will begin to travel from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey in a procession at 5:20 a.m. Eastern, 10:20 a.m. local time. The route they will take is 1.3 miles long, directly through central London.
The coronation ceremony will begin at Westminster Abbey at 6:00 a.m. Eastern, 11:00 a.m. local time and is expected to last for about two hours. Afterwards, they will travel in a procession back to Buckingham Palace.
Click here for a full schedule of the coronation events and to learn how to watch the ceremony from wherever you are.
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 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.”
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.”
London – As the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate, visit the United States — their first royal visit since Queen Elizabeth II died in September — a racist incident involving a member of the royal household at a Buckingham Palace reception is overshadowing their trip.
The royal couple arrived in Boston only hours after William’s godmother, who was a lady-in-waiting to the queen for 60 years, resigned as a palace aide for interrogating a Black woman who heads a domestic violence charity. Ngozi Fulani was attending an event at Buckingham Palace and was asked repeatedly to explain where she was “really” from.
Fulani, the head London-based domestic violence service provider Sistah Space, shared an account of her exchange with 83-year-old Lady Susan Hussey on Twitter, which went viral. Fulani told CBS News partner network BBC News it was “abuse.”
Mixed feelings about yesterday’s visit to Buckingham Palace. 10 mins after arriving, a member of staff, Lady SH, approached me, moved my hair to see my name badge. The conversation below took place. The rest of the event is a blur. Thanks @ManduReid & @SuzanneEJacob for support🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/OUbQKlabyq
“First thing she does is she takes my hair and moves it out of the way so that she could see my name badge. That was a surprise. And then she proceeded to ask me where I’m from. Now, because it’s an environment where we are advocates against domestic abuse, I assume she’s asking me what agency or what charity I’m from, so I said Sistah Space. ‘No, where are you from?’ So I say, ‘Hackney’ (a neighborhood in London). This goes on for some time.”
Fulani said Hussey continued to ask her where she was from for about five minutes, not accepting London or the U.K. as answers.
Lady Susan Hussey, Baroness Hussey of North Bradley (then a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II) attends a Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey on March 29, 2022 in London, England.
Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty
“At that time, I’m thinking to myself, is it actually — because she keeps asking me the same question — could it be that she can’t hear me well? Because you have to consider so many things when you’re talking to someone who may be older than you… But it dawned on me very quickly that this has nothing to do with her capacity to understand, but this is her trying to make me really denounce my British citizenship. I’ve never, I mean, there was three of us standing there completely stunned,” Fulani told the BBC. “I have to really question how this can happen in a space that’s supposed to protect women against all kinds of violence… Although it’s not physical violence, it is an abuse.”
One of the witnesses to the exchange was the head of Britain’s Women’s Equality Party, Mandu Reid, who said it was a sign of a wider problem within the monarchy.
“[Hussey] has been a royal aide in the household for 60 years. So in fact, she’s quite a good barometer of that institution. And for her, it was perfectly ordinary to greet and engage with us in that way,” Reid told the BBC’s Newsnight program. “She had no self-awareness. She didn’t respond to any cues we were giving about how uncomfortable it was making us. I think that does signify that we are talking about an institutional problem.”
A spokesperson for Prince William and Kate condemned the exchange, saying that “racism has no place in our society. The comments were unacceptable, and it is right that the individual has stepped aside with immediate effect.”
Buckingham Palace said in a statement that they “take this incident extremely seriously and have investigated immediately to establish the full details. In this instance, unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments have been made. We have reached out to Ngozi Fulani on this matter, and are inviting her to discuss all elements of her experience in person if she wishes. In the meantime, the individual concerned would like to express her profound apologies for the hurt caused and has stepped aside from her honorary role with immediate effect. All members of the household are being reminded of the diversity and inclusivity policies which they are required to uphold at all times.”
Reid said it wasn’t enough that Hussey had resigned from her post, because the problem of racism within the British monarchy was greater than just one person.
“I think, in a way, zooming in on the individual in question, Lady Susan, it reminds me of that bad apple approach to dealing with issues like this… ‘Let’s try to frame it as some sort of isolated incident,’” Reid said. “Well actually, let’s look at Meghan’s account. Meghan herself said that her experiences in the royal household brought her to the brink of suicide. Now, we were at this gathering for just one afternoon. We spent a couple of hours there, and it really left its mark on me and it left its mark on Ngozi. Imagine having to deal with that day in and day out.”
The Prince and Princess of Wales attended a ceremony at Boston City Hall Wednesday night, before watching a Celtics game. On Thursday, they visit a climate change technology incubator and on Friday, they’ll hand out awards worth more than $1 million to entrepreneurs trying to combat climate change, CBS News’ Ben Tracy reports. The White House has confirmed the couple will also meet President Joe Biden later this week.
“This is a really important few days for the Waleses to get their message over about what the royal family is for,” Roya Nikkhah, royal editor for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, told Tracy. She said the incident at the palace was “not helpful at the start of this trip. I think they’ll try very hard now to move the conversation on over the next few days.”
On April 29, 2011, Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton were married in a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
In this photo, Prince William kisses his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after the royal wedding in London.
Prince William
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Prince William waves to the crowds with his brother Prince Harry of Wales as they arrive to attend the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Queen Elizabeth II greets The Right Reverend Dr. John Hall, Dean of Westminster, as she arrives to attend the royal wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Royal wedding
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Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales arrive to attend the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William
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Prince William (R) and his brother and best man Prince Harry (L) arrive at Westminster Abbey ahead of the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Prince William (center) and his best man, Prince Harry (left), are greeted by Receiver General Stephen Lamport (right) as they arrive at Westminster Abbey ahead of William’s royal wedding to Kate Middleton on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Prince Harry
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Prince William (L) and his best man Prince Harry (R) wait inside Westminster Abbey ahead of the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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General view of the congregation before the wedding at Westminster Abbey of Prince William to Kate Middleton on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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The procession leads at the start of the wedding at Westminster Abbey ahead of the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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(L-R) British Prime Minister David Cameron, wife Samantha Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, Frances Osborne and husband Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne take their seats in Westminster Abbey ahead of the royal wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Pippa Middleton
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Pippa Middleton arrives with the bridesmaids and pageboys at Westminster Abbey for the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
The marriage of the second in line to the British throne is to be led by the Archbishop of Canterbury and will be attended by 1900 guests, including foreign Royal family members and heads of state. Thousands of well-wishers from around the world have also flocked to London to witness the spectacle and pageantry of the Royal Wedding.
Kate Middleton
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Kate Middleton arrives to attend the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Kate Middleton
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Kate Middleton arrives with her father Michael Middleton and sister and Maid of Honor Pippa Middleton to attend the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
WPrince William and Kate Middleton
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Page boy Tom Petiffer (R) looks up as he waits with bridesmaids and page boys inside the Westminster Abbey before the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Kate Middleton has her dress adjusted as she arrives with her father Michael at Westminster Abbey before her marriage to Britain’s Prince William in central London April 29, 2011
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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A woman adjusts the dress of Kate Middleton as she arrives with her father Michael Middleton (L) at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Kate Middleton walks down the isle with father Michael at Westminster Abbey, central London, for her wedding to Britain’s Prince William, Friday, April 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Prince William and his new bride Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge walk down the aisle at the close of their wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Father of the bride Michael Middleton, leads his daughter Kate down the aisle to be wed to Prince William during their wedding at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Father of the bride Michael Middleton, leads his daughter Kate down the aisle to be wed to Prince William, followed by Pippa Middleton during their wedding at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Prince William stands beside his bride, Kate Middleton, with her father, Michael Middleton, on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Prince William greets Kate Middleton as she arrives at the alter with her father Michael Middleton, prior to their marriage in London’s Westminster Abbey, Friday April 29 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Father of the bride Michael Middleton, gives his daughter Kate to be wed to Prince William during their wedding at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Britain’s Prince William, center right, and Kate Middleton, center left, stand at the altar during their wedding service at Westminster Abbey, London, Friday April 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Prince William and Kate Middleton, hold hands in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Westminster Abbey during their wedding service in central London, Friday, April 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey, London, during their wedding service, Friday, April 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Prince William exchanges rings with Kate Middleton in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams inside Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
AP Photo/Dominic Lipinski, Pool
Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton exchange rings in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury at Westminster Abbey, London, Friday, April 29, 2011
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Prince William takes the hand of his bride Kate Middleton, now to be known as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, followed by Prince Harry and Pippa Middleton as they walk down the aisle inside Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Kirsty Wigglesworth – WPA Pool/Getty Images
Prince William takes the hand of his bride Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, followed by Prince Harry and Pippa Middleton as they walk down the aisle inside Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Photo by Dominic Lipinski – WPA Pool/Getty Images
Prince William and his new bride Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge walk down the aisle inside Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
AP Photo/Gero Breloer
Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge leave Westminster Abbey at the royal wedding in London, Friday, April 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
AP Photo/Martin Meissner
Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherin, Duchess of Cambridge stand outside of Westminster Abbey after their royal wedding in London Friday, April, 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, leave Westminster Abbey after their wedding ceremony, in London, on April 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
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Their Royal Highnesses Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge walk to make their journey by carriage procession to Buckingham Palace following their marriage at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince Harry and Pippa Middleton
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Prince Harry and Pippa Middleton are seen inside of Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Carole Middleton, Queen Elizabeth II and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall speak following the marriage of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Matt Dunham/AP
Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge wave from the balcony of Buckingham Palace after their wedding in London, April, 29, 2011.
Prince William kisses his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after the Royal Wedding in London Friday, April, 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Matt Cardy, Pool/AP
Prince William, right, and his wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, left, make the journey by carriage procession to Buckingham Palace past crowds of spectators following their marriage at Westminster Abbey, London, Friday, April 29, 2011.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Wellwishers wave flags as they surge along the Mall behind the police towards Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Royal Wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Oli Scarff/Getty Images
Their Royal Highnesses Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge travel along the Mall following their marriage ceremony on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Paul Gilham/Getty Images
Their Royal Highnesses Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge journey by carriage procession to Buckingham Palace following their marriage at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011 in London.
Prince William and Kate Middleton
Matt Dunham/AP
Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge drive away from Buckingham Palace in a convertible after the Royal Wedding in London Friday, April, 29, 2011.
