Senior military figures have condemned the Duke of Sussex after he said in his memoir that he killed 25 people while serving as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan.
A distinguished British army colonel accused Prince Harry of “betraying” the military, while a former assistant chief of the defence staff said his remarks broke “an unwritten code”.
Colonel Tim Collins, who gave an inspirational eve-of-battle speech before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, said Harry had been “badly advised”, having described killing Taliban fighters as like removing “chess pieces”. Collins said that he had been “naive” to publish details of his two tours in Afghanistan and questioned the motives of those who had encouraged him to write his book.
• Prince Harry to speak about book Spare in ITV interview — follow latest
“The military has always embraced him into the family no matter what had gone on before. He’s now betrayed that trust in the same way he’s betrayed his birth family,” Collins told The Times.
Advertisement
“I think he’s completely naive. There’s no understanding of what he’s doing and what he has done. He needs somebody to put their arm around him, but not somebody who is putting their arm around him in order to make money.
• How Harry wrote Spare — as imagined by Hilary Rose
• Janice Turner: Harry’s ‘truth’ hurts only him
“We went to Afghanistan as part of a legally sanctioned intervention for the benefit of the lawful government and people of Afghanistan. We didn’t go there to kill people . . . all loss of life is regrettable.”
Collins, 62, completed three tours with the SAS and UK Special Forces and is known for delivering a speech on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Speaking to his troops in Kuwait, he said: “We go to Iraq to liberate, not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.”
Prince Harry, 38, served in the army for ten years, undertaking two tours of Afghanistan and rising to the rank of captain. After graduating from Sandhurst in 2006, he joined the Household Cavalry and deployed to Helmand in 2007 as a forward air controller. It was the first time a member of the royal family had served in a war zone since Prince Andrew flew helicopters in the Falklands war.
• The Times view: A Wounded Prince
• Damian Whitworth: Charles wasn’t afraid to dish dirt either
Advertisement
The Duke of Sussex then undertook pilot training and was promoted to the rank of captain in 2011, returning to Afghanistan the following year as a co-pilot and gunner on an Apache helicopter serving with 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps.
Describing this period in his book, Harry writes that he did not view his victims as “people”. He said he regarded dead Taliban fighters as “bad guys eliminated”.
Ben McBean, one of Harry’s closest friends from his time in the military, said the duke’s advisers viewed him as a “money-making machine”. The former Royal Marine said Harry was a “good guy” but questioned his decision to talk about the number of people he had killed in combat.
“It’s something that normally you would keep to yourself or just the guys you were over there with at the time,” he told TalkTV.
Lord Darroch of Kew, a former national security adviser, told Sky News that Harry had tarnished his good military reputation. “Personally if I’d been advising the prince, I would have advised against the kind of detail that he goes into,” he said.
Advertisement
Major General Jonathan Shaw, a former assistant chief of the defence staff, also condemned Harry’s remarks. “Soldiers don’t talk about killing for good reason. Harry’s comments break an unwritten code. I suspect this is motivated by his PR people’s drive for money,” he told Mail Online.
Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded troops in Afghanistan, said that his “greatest concern” was Harry’s characterisation of the enemy “as subhuman”. He told the BBC that the duke’s book may have undermined his own security: “It will remind people that ten years ago there was this very, very high-profile man, killing people they might have sympathy with in Afghanistan, and might well be provoked, shall we say, to attempt revenge.” Harry had a “fantastic reputation” but that had been tarnished “to an extent”, Kemp said.
Anas Haqqani, the Taliban leader, accused Harry of war crimes. He wrote online: “Mr Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans. They had families who were waiting for their return. Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes. The truth is what you’ve said: our innocent people were chess pieces to your soldiers, military and political leaders.”
He added: “I don’t expect that the [international criminal court] will summon you or the human rights activists will condemn you, because they are deaf and blind for you. But hopefully these atrocities will be remembered in the history of humanity.”
Khalid Zadran, the Taliban’s police spokesman in Kabul, said Harry should go on trial. “Criminals like Harry who proudly confess their crimes will be brought to the court table in front of the international community,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Occupying forces in Afghanistan used to start operations under nightfall on our villages. Prince Harry was involved in this and he has taken the lives of dozens of defenceless Afghans. The cruel and barbaric actions of Harry and others aroused the Afghan population and led to an armed uprising against them.”
Questions swirl about dalliance outside pub
Advertisement
Speculation was rife yesterday as to the identity of the horse-loving older woman who the Duke of Sussex lost his virginity to when he was 17 (George Sandeman writes).
In his book Spare, Harry describes the experience as “a humiliating episode with an older woman who was fond of horses who treated me like a young stallion”. The incident happened in a field behind a busy pub — thought to be the Rattlebone Inn in Wiltshire.
He wrote: “I mounted her quickly after which she spanked my bottom and sent me away.”
Some suggested that Liz Hurley could be the woman but the actress quashed those rumours, telling The Times: “Not me. Not guilty. Not me. Absolutely not.”
Yesterday Suzannah Harvey, who has written previously about kissing Harry when they were younger, told the Daily Mail that she would not be discussing his book or its contents.
Advertisement
Harvey, a former model who now works as chief executive of Cotswold airport, met the prince more than 20 years ago at the Beaufort Hunt Christmas Ball when he was 17 and she was 23. The ball was held in a marquee in the grounds of Badminton House in Gloucestershire where Harry, then still a pupil at Eton, was part of a horserisidng set based in the county.
Speaking to the newspaper in 2002, she said she and the prince enjoyed several dances together before going outside and walking across a field to share a kiss.
“He’s a wild child and William was helpless to stop him. Outside he handled me like a grown man,” she said. “He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me in to him. It felt like his hands were going round my whole waist. The kissing was full of passion. My mouth was numb and couldn’t move.”
She said by the time they returned to the ball her dress had become muddy from walking in the field but they carried on dancing a while longer before going their separate ways.
Harvey told the Daily Mail last night that Harry’s memoir was not something she wished to discuss. She declined to talk to a reporter who called at her Cotswold home yesterday, adding that she was away but her boyfriend, who she said was “in the SAS”, was there.
Moments later, a man walked up the driveway of the four-bedroom property and said: “Please leave now before I call the police.”
Comment: Self destruction can spring from post-traumatic stress
The frenzy around Prince Harry’s revelations, fuelled by commentators full of criticism and sensationalised anger, are missing one very important thing: the human factor (Philip Ingram writes).
Harry is a human like all of us — what happened to him in his early years as a child would break many normal people. He has been subject to intense public scrutiny from birth and he found solace in the army.
That gave him a family and a safe space to be himself. When he was commissioned from Sandhurst at his commissioning ball, I remember dancing the conga in a line snaking through the grounds with him. He had an invincible spark in his eyes that night and was partying with his mates behaving as young officers do.
Read the column by Philip Ingram MBE, a former colonel in the British Army, in full
Charles ‘worried that resplendent Meghan would overshadow him’
Prince Harry has claimed his father did not want a “resplendent” Meghan to steal the monarchy’s limelight and leave him living in her shadow (Kaya Burgess writes).
The prince said Charles had previously experienced being overshadowed in the royal family and was worried that Meghan, as a “novel and resplendent” royal, would come to “dominate the monarchy”. The duke writes in his memoir that his father had “no interest” in seeing that happen again.
Harry claims that his father asked him during a visit to Sandringham, as they sat together in a Land Rover, whether Meghan intended to continue with her acting career. Harry said that he told Charles she would probably leave acting and want to live with him in the UK.
En La Sombra, the Spanish edition of his book, which translates as In The Shade or In The Shadow, appeared early on bookshelves in Spain. In it, Harry writes that his father claimed they had no money to spare and were already struggling to support William and Kate. Harry says he never saw the money as “support” but as payment for carrying out their jobs as members of the royal family, comparing his life to captivity in a “gilded cage”. He argues that they gave up their independence in return for food and clothing from their jailers.
Harry refers to his surprise at his father’s suggestion he was short of money, claiming Charles made “millions” from the “lucrative” Duchy of Cornwall. Harry then writes that he thought it was maybe less to do with the money and more because his father feared that someone new was going to dominate the monarchy and the newspaper front pages, potentially overshadowing Charles and Camilla. While still Prince of Wales, Charles financially supported the couple until their move to the United States when they stepped back from royal duties.
Mud slinging must stop to heal rift, say mental health experts
Psychologists said it was impossible to heal family rifts in the spotlight, after parts of the Duke of Sussex’s memoir took aim at the royal family.
Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist, said even the worst relationships could be fixed “quietly and with time”, but only without the pressure of being in the public gaze.
Harry says he wants to reconnect with his father and brother, but has aired grievances against them repeatedly and now in his book Spare.
Blair, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS), said individuals modified their behaviour when observed, scuppering chances of reconciliation.
The Hawthorne effect, coined by the sociologist Henry Landsberger in 1958, refers to a tendency in some people to alter their behaviour in response to their awareness of being observed.
Blair said: “By being observed we are different in how we react because of how we’re feeling. You just can’t be without awareness or relax.
“There’s not a chance for the emotions to cool and logic to step in. It takes the spotlight going off and effort from both sides to be able to forgive each other. You can’t go back to square one, because new things have happened, but you can come back to a compatible and comfortable time. It’s always possible.
“It needs to be done quietly and with time, so both parties can consider how to put down their swords.”
Blair, who cannot speak directly about Harry because of BPS rules, said many people did not understand how “overwhelming” the pressure of the spotlight was.
US media dismiss royal revelations
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have long been championed by the American media but Harry’s latest revelations have not been well received across the Atlantic (Keiran Southern writes).
The prince’s claims have been criticised in major newspapers and mocked on late-night television.
The Chicago Tribune urged Harry to “stop”, warning the prince: “You will regret this later.”
“The book . . . could well destroy a few lives in the process or bring about years of misery,” the newspaper wrote. There is rich irony in how names such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu have been incorporated into the cause of the couple from Montecito, California.
“Harry and Meghan have no compunction at co-opting the imprimatur of those who devoted their lives to reconciliation, even while they have no demonstrated interest in doing the same.”
Harry, the paper suggested, was motivated by money.
It said: “Harry had a contract to fulfill, clearly understood that his monetary value to his sponsors and publishers required him to trash his family, and decided that dovetailed quite nicely with his own righteous anger.”
One of Harry’s biggest revelations was mocked by the late-night television show Jimmy Kimmel Live!
The show shared a sketch online reenacting the alleged physical confrontation between the duke and his brother, using actors dressed as the late pop star Prince as stand-ins for the siblings. As a narrator read a passage from Spare recalling the fight, the actors fought theatrically.
Brothers ‘wondered if Diana faked death’
Prince William and Prince Harry thought their mother might have faked her own death and gone into hiding, according to the Duke of Sussex’s memoir.
Harry writes that after a holiday in the Swiss ski resort of Klosters with his older brother he discussed his theory that Diana was still alive.
Harry said William replied that he had once thought that was the case but had dismissed the idea, telling his brother that their mother was gone and “not coming back”. Harry replied that Diana had often said she wanted to disappear. William agreed that he too had heard her say this, Harry writes, but added she would “never” have done that to her sons.
Harry writes that he once thought that his mother might have staged the car accident in Paris in 1997 as a cover for going into hiding because she had been harassed and hounded so much. He says that he would wake up in the morning thinking that “maybe today will be the day” that she reappeared. Even four years after the fatal crash, he still thought that she could be alive, living somewhere under a new identity, and might give a surprise “press conference” in which she called for William and Harry to join her.
Harry writes that he saw his mother often in his dreams and would feel disappointed every time he woke up to realise she was not with him.
The prince adds, however, that “deep down” he always knew the truth — that she was dead.
The book also includes the revelation that Harry visited a woman who “claimed to have powers” and said she could relay a message from his late mother, telling the duke: “You’re living the life she couldn’t. You’re living the life she wanted for you.”
Comment: Harry’s ‘truth’ hurts only him
It was a voice of puzzlement, concern, even love (Janice Turner writes). “Makes you wonder the people he’s hanging around with,” tweeted the Royal Marine veteran Ben McBean. “If it was good people, somebody by now would have told him to stop.” The simplest squaddie, the most cash-strapped kiss ’n’ tell — almost any one of us — would have more people guarding our reputation, happiness, safety, than the royal blurter. Where the hell are Harry’s friends?
The greatest irony of Spare is that a man driven to avenge the stories allegedly planted against him by Buckingham Palace has sown himself a vast, poisonous forest.
Read Janice Turner’s column in full
Kate and Meghan’s ‘awkward moment’ over lip gloss
In his memoir, Harry recalls an “awkward moment” when he says his wife and the then Duchess of Cambridge clashed over cultural differences in the use of lip gloss (Peter Chappell writes).
At a joint appearance at the Royal Foundation Forum in 2018, Meghan asked Kate if she could borrow some lip gloss because she had forgotten hers, something Harry described as an “American” habit.
“Kate, taken aback, went into her handbag and reluctantly pulled out a small tube,” Harry writes. “Meg squeezed some onto her finger and applied it to her lips. Kate grimaced.”
The duke wrote that the four “should’ve been able to laugh” about the moment but the press “sensed” it was “something bigger” and so Kate was “on edge” that she was now “going to be compared to, and forced to compete with, Meg”.
It is not the first time awkwardness between the pair has been put down to the differences in American and British manners. When Meghan first met Kate, she thought Kate considered it “jarring” that she greeted her with a hug. “I’m a hugger,” Meghan explained to Oprah Winfrey.
Harry’s memoirs also shed light on an argument the pair had over Princess Charlotte’s bridesmaid dress before Meghan’s wedding in 2018 that had left the bride “on the floor” in tears.
Reports suggested Meghan made a heavily pregnant Kate cry, while Meghan later used her Oprah Winfrey interview to claim the opposite.
The memoir states that the small dresses were hand-sewn from designs by Givenchy creative director Claire Waight Keller and it made sense that some would need tweaks. According to Harry, Kate messaged Meghan to tell her Charlotte’s dress was “too big, long and baggy” and that Charlotte “burst into tears when she tried it on”.
According to Harry, the Duchess of Sussex replied to Kate and told her to bring Charlotte to the palace, where a tailor was waiting to perform alterations for all six of the bridesmaids.
This was “not sufficient” for Kate, according to the memoir, who told Meghan that all the dresses needed to be remade four days before the wedding. Kate said her own wedding dress designer, Alexander McQueen’s Sarah Burton, agreed with her.
Harry wrote that he later found his wife in tears “on the floor”. The next day, he claims, Kate apologised and brought flowers and a card.
Prince may struggle to argue for privacy now, says press watchdog chief
Prince Harry may find it harder in the future to defend his right to privacy after revealing so much in his book, the head of the press regulator has suggested (Laurence Sleator writes).
Lord Faulks KC, who has chaired the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) since 2019, said it is not “unreasonable” for the media to report on the private life of an individual if they themselves have been prepared to discuss it publicly.
In his memoir Spare, Harry reveals private conversations between members of his family and includes details of his drug-taking past and how he lost his virginity.
Speaking to the World at One on BBC Radio 4, the crossbench peer, 72, was asked if Harry had damaged his right to privacy by including such stories.
“In general terms, when considering whether there has been a violation of privacy, it is legitimate to consider whether an individual has brought into the public domain their private life,” he said.
“Most people don’t want anybody to know anything about their private life, but if they are prepared to discuss it then it is not unreasonable for the press to write about it and to say to some extent they have brought an invasion of privacy on themselves.”
Faulks said he had in the past felt personally “uncomfortable about the way the monarchy has been treated” by the press.
The Duke of Sussex has always had a hostile relationship with the media and he and his wife are known to be litigious over articles they believe to be defamatory or an invasion of privacy. They have complained to Ipso on a number of occasions, winning and losing cases.
In Spare, Harry said he felt newspapers were “hunting” him and one unnamed newspaper editor would not stop until “his balls were nailed to her office wall”.
Harry prompts surge in online searches
If Harry’s strategy was to cause a sales spike by teasing parts of his memoir before publication, search data hints he may have achieved his aim.
Analysis of Google data by Celeb Tattler shows that online searches for “Order Spare” surged by 226 per cent worldwide yesterday after details of the book were briefed to the press and copies were leaked by Spanish booksellers. Outside the UK, interest in buying the title was strong in Australia, Ireland and South Africa, but less so in America and Canada.
According to the search engine, interest in the UK for “Prince Harry” spiked from a rating of 12 to 600 over the course of yesterday, and queries rose sharply again this morning as a backlash against some of the duke’s claims grew.
How Harry wrote Spare — as imagined by Hilary Rose
So I’m sitting in the dog basket with a blanket over my head. It’s my safe space. Meg and I are going through all the key points I want to say in my book, which is an autobiography, but it will be written by someone else not me, because duh.
“So let’s take it from the top,” says Meg, who is sporting a smokey eye, a nude lip and just a hint of a frown to show that she’s concentrating, but prettily, and not so much that it might cause wrinkles later.
“Let’s go,” says the ghostwriter.
Publisher ‘will be pleased’ by leak publicity
The publisher of Prince Harry’s memoir will be 70 per cent happy about the massive breaches in its security operation, according to the editor of The Bookseller (writes David Sanderson).
Philip Jones said he suspected that after the leaks and “accidental” selling in Spain of Spare, Penguin Random House would “quietly lift the embargo” that is supposed to prevent its sale until Tuesday.
“On balance they will be pretty happy with what has come out so far,” Jones said. “It has led the news agenda everywhere.”
Spare immediately went to the top of Amazon’s bestseller list in late October when pre-orders were available, but it has since been out of its top ten more than in. However, Jones said he expected it to sell between 50,000 and 100,000 copies, including pre-orders, in the UK alone during its first week. “Prince Harry is Marmite,” he said. “It could go either way.”
Jones said he suspected Penguin Random House could make the book available earlier than planned given how much material was already in the public domain, although there may be logistical problems in making sure bookshops have copies.
The Bookseller reported that Penguin Random House’s South African arm had warned that due to security measures that meant printing was done “as late as possible in Europe”, the book may arrive after the Tuesday release date.
Meghan knelt at Diana’s grave to ask for guidance
Prince Harry has revealed that his then girlfriend Meghan Markle kneeled next to the grave of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, to ask for guidance (Peter Chappell writes).
Harry recalls in his book the first time Meghan visited Diana’s final resting place on the Spencer family’s Althorp estate in Northamptonshire.
He says that the couple rowed to the island where Diana is buried in August 2017. After he had taken a moment to reflect, he thought Meghan may want a moment to herself.
“When I returned, she was on her knees with her eyes closed and her palms flat against the stone,” he said, adding that she told him she had asked his late mother for “clarity and guidance”.
Diana was laid to rest at her childhood home in 1997, and the grave was re-dedicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2017, before the 20th anniversary of her death and when Harry and Meghan had been together for a year.
The duke has previously paid to tribute to how much his wife reminds him of his mother. In the couple’s Netflix series released last month, he said: “She has the same compassion. She has the same empathy. She has the same confidence. She has this warmth about her.”
Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair who wrote a biography on Diana, said today: “Harry’s turned into a human hand grenade. It’s raining down on the House of Windsor just at the start of his father’s reign.”
PM refuses to comment on revelations
Rishi Sunak has said it would not be appropriate to comment on revelations made by the Duke of Sussex in his memoir.
The prime minister refused to be drawn on whether Harry was wise to reveal the number of Taliban fighters killed while he was on duty in Afghanistan, after experts warned that in doing so the duke had put his own safety and that of his family in danger.
“I wouldn’t comment on matters to do with the royal family,” Sunak said. “I would just say I am enormously grateful to our armed forces for the incredible job they do in keeping us all safe. We’re all very fortunate for their service.”
Accountability must come before any reconciliation, says Harry
The Duke of Sussex has said that he wants a reconciliation with his brother and father but only if the royal family accept “accountability” for their role in the growing rift.
As revelations from his memoir Spare continued to leak before its publication date on Tuesday, a trailer for ITV’s forthcoming interview with Harry was released this morning.
In the trailer the duke tells Tom Bradby: “I want reconciliation but first there needs to be some accountability. The truth supposedly at the moment has been there’s only one side of the story, right? But there’s two sides to every story.”
Harry also spoke again about the alleged confrontation with his brother, the Prince of Wales. In the ITV clip, the duke said that his brother had been so frustrated that he had seen “the red mist in him”. He said: “He wanted me to hit him back, but I chose not to.”
In one of the most damaging passages of the book, Harry, 38, recounts how William, 40, knocked him to the ground during an argument about the Duchess of Sussex in 2019.
The book alleges that William pushed Harry during a row at Nottingham Cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace, after calling Meghan “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”.
The ITV interview, which is due to be aired on Sunday, also includes details about Harry’s drug use. Bradby tells the duke: “There’s a fair amount of drugs. Marijuana, magic mushrooms, cocaine. I mean, that’s going to surprise people.” The duke suggests that his drug use was “important to acknowledge”.
Asked whether he would attend his father’s coronation later this year, he said: “There’s a lot that can happen between now and then but the door is always open, the ball is in their court. There is a lot to be discussed and I really hope they are willing to sit down and talk about it.”
Harry said he still believed in the monarchy, but when asked whether he believed he would play a part in its future he said: “I don’t know.”
The show, called Harry: The Interview, will be broadcast on ITV1 and ITX at 9pm on Sunday.
The key claims in Harry’s book
When Prince Harry announced details of his new memoir, Spare, his publishers, Penguin Random House, promised readers pages filled with “raw, unflinching honesty”. In many areas, from details of royal life to his sexual exploits, Harry’s book delivers just that. Here are some of the most revealing sections:
1. There was a physical altercation between him and his brother
Taking place at his London home in 2019, a confrontation took place after William had called Meghan “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”, Harry said.
“He [William] broke my necklace by grabbing me by the collar of my shirt and he threw me to the ground. I fell on the dog bowl, it broke under my back and the pieces scratched me.”
2. His brother is his ‘arch-nemesis’
Though he also recognised him as his “beloved brother”, Harry refers to William in the book as his “arch-nemesis”.
Duke recalls moment ‘‘red mist’’ descended on his brother
The Duke of Sussex has spoken about his desire for a reconciliation with his brother and father but only if the royal family accept “accountability” for their role in the escalating rift.
As revelations detailed in his memoir Spare continue to leak ahead of its publication date on Tuesday, a trailer for ITV’s forthcoming interview with Harry was released this morning.
The duke states: “I want reconciliation but, first, there needs to be some accountability. The truth, supposedly, at the moment, has been there’s only one side of the story, right? But, there’s two sides to every story.”
Harry also spoke out again over the alleged confrontation between himself and his brother, the Prince of Wales. In the ITV clip, the duke said that his brother was so frustrated that he saw “the red mist in him”.
He said: “He wanted me to hit him back, but I chose not to.”
In one of the most damaging passages of the book, Harry, 38, recounts how William, 40, knocked him to the ground during an argument about the Duchess of Sussex in 2019.
The book alleges that William pushed Harry to the ground at Nottingham Cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace, after calling Meghan “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”.
In the clip, Harry tells Tom Bradby: “What was different here was the level of frustration, and I talk about the red mist that I had for so many years, and I saw this red mist in him.”
Harry writes that William “grabbed me by the collar” and knocked him to the floor, causing a dog bowl to shatter under his back.
He first recounted the confrontation in his autobiography Spare, an extract from which was leaked by The Guardian. Copies of the book, which has been subject to tight security to prevent leaks, were released in Spain after being accidentally put on sale before publication on Tuesday by Penguin Random House.
Harry has recorded interviews with several broadcasters in Britain and the United States to promote the book.
In snippets released in advance, Harry told America’s CBS that the palace’s refusal to defend him and Meghan from attacks was a “betrayal”.
The ITV interview, which is due to be aired on Sunday, also includes details about Harry’s drug use. Bradby tells the duke: “There’s a fair amount of drugs. Marijuana, magic mushrooms, cocaine. I mean, that’s going to surprise people.” Agreeing with Bradby, the duke suggests that his drug use was “important to acknowledge”.
In an earlier teaser of the ITV interview, Harry said that he was publishing his memoirs because he did not know “how staying silent is ever going to make things better”.
The full ITV interview is due to be broadcast two days before publication and, in a trailer, Bradby asks: “Wouldn’t your brother say to you, ‘Harry, how could you do this to me after everything? After everything we went through?’ Wouldn’t that be what he would say?”
Harry replied: “He would probably say all sorts of different things.”
Bradby told Harry: “Some people will say you’ve railed against invasions of your privacy all your life but the accusation will be here are you invading the privacy of your most nearest and dearest without permission, that will be the accusation.”
Harry answered: “That will be the accusation from people that don’t understand or don’t want to believe that my family have been briefing the press.”
Asked if he would attend his father’s coronation later this year, he said “the door is always open, the ball is in their court”.
Harry said he still believed in the monarchy but, when asked if he believed he would play a part in its future, he said: “I don’t know.”
The show, called Harry: The Interview, will be broadcast on ITV1 and ITX at 9pm on Sunday.
Duke reveals last words to the Queen on her death bed
The Duke of Sussex has revealed the final words he whispered to the Queen at Balmoral after she died in September (Keiran Southern writes).
In his controversial memoir Spare, Harry said he told the monarch that he “hoped she would be happy” and reunited with his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, who died the previous year.
The prince also wrote that he told the 96-year-old Queen that he “admired her for having fulfilled her duties until the very end”, a reference to her attending the Platinum Jubilee celebrations last summer.
Harry then left his grandmother and called the Duchess of Sussex to let her know he had arrived in Scotland safely, according to celebrity news website Page Six which reported excerpts from Spare.
Copies of the hard-hitting memoir leaked ahead of the release date on Tuesday and revealed that Harry learnt of the death of the Queen from news reports while he was rushing to Balmoral after being told her health had deteriorated.
He said that he lost his temper with his father when he said that Meghan should not join him in Scotland. In the epilogue of the book, already published in Spain, Harry writes that he received a phone call from an unknown number on September 8.
“It was my father. The health of my grandmother had deteriorated,” he writes, adding that Charles was already in Balmoral.
“Straight away I wrote to Willy [William] to ask if he and Kate were going to fly there and, if so, when and on what terms. He did not reply. Meg and I looked up flights. The press started calling. We could not keep on putting off the decision.”
Harry said that he and Meghan cancelled a planned appearance at a charity awards ceremony to rush to Scotland before being told his wife was not welcome.
His father called again, and told Harry he was welcome that but Meghan was not. After cross words Charles apologised and said it was because he did not want things to be crowded and that no one’s wife was going, “not even Kate”, Harry writes.
