Sophia Michaels
Prince Harry says he’s been forced to make his concerns about the royal family public. In a clip from his forthcoming interview on 60 Minutes, Prince Harry explained he and his wife Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, have spoken out to combat the tabloids.
“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,” he tells host Anderson Cooper in the clip. “You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain, but it’s just a motto.”
“There’s a lot of complaining and a lot of explaining,” Cooper interjects, “being done through leaks.”
“They will feed or have a conversation with the correspondent,” Prince Harry continues. “And that correspondent will literally be spoon-fed information and write the story. And at the bottom of it they will say that they’ve reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. But the whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting. So when we’re being told for the last six years, ‘We can’t put a statement out to protect you.’ But you do it for other members of the family. It becomes… there becomes a point when silence is betrayal.”
Prince Harry’s conversation with Cooper is set to air on Sunday, Jan. 8. It will come only days before his new memoir, aptly-titled Spare, is set to hit bookstore shelves and marks the royal’s first on U.S. television to promote the book.
Last month, Netflix released a six-episode documentary series, Harry & Meghan, directed by Liz Garbus. The first three episodes chronicled the pair’s tabloid-ravaged love story, from the couple’s first date to their nuptials, while the latter three dug more into their departure from the royal family and the drama that ensued.
Spare will be released Jan. 10, 2023. The 416-page book will be available to purchase on hardcover and as an audiobook (on CD), read by Prince Harry himself. The book’s description notes, “With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.”
