Still holding on? Prince Harry had a quick retort when asked about why he and Meghan Markle have yet to renounce their royal titles.
“And what difference would that make?” Harry, 38, told Anderson Cooper on the Sunday, January, 8, episode of 60 Minutes, when asked about giving up the couple’s Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles in the wake of their royal step back.
The prince walked away from his senior royal duties in early 2020 alongside his wife, 41, before moving to California later that year. While the couple no longer use their official Duke and Duchess of Sussex social media pages, royal observers have criticized the pair for continuing to use the titles when they no longer have royal responsibilities.
Similarly, others have questioned why the twosome have publicly spoke out against The Firm and Harry’s family instead of working things out privately.
“Every single time I’ve tried to do it privately there would be briefings and leakings and plantings of stories against me and my wife,” the Archewell cofounder claimed on Sunday. “The family motto is, ‘Never complain, never complain.’ But it’s just a motto.”
Harry — who shares son Archie, 3, and daughter Lili, 19 months, with the Suits alum — noted that he would never leak a story about his family. However, he claimed that some members of the royal family don’t have the same values.
“So now [I’m] trying to speak a language that perhaps they understand,” the Invictus Games founder told Cooper, 55. “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 narrative to a tabloid.”
Harry further explained that after broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson published a column in The Sun about his hatred for Meghan last month, he felt his family didn’t have his back. (The outlet has since issued a public apology — and Clarkson admitted he “put my foot in it” with his remarks.)
There was no statement or official response from the palace on the matter. “There comes a point where silence is betrayal,” he said on Sunday.
Harry also pointed to his mistrust of the British press in his upcoming memoir, Spare, which comes out on Tuesday, January 10. He included several instances where the U.K. tabloids allegedly falsely reported on him, his wife and his extended family.
“My problem has never been with the monarchy, nor the concept of the monarchy,” the BetterUp CIO said during his ITV interview, which aired in the U.K. on Sunday. “It has been with the press and the sick relationship that’s evolved between [the press] and the Palace.”
The duke claimed that his family has “tried to control” the tabloids in England for “years” and is still “trying to control it.”
He further alleged that some of the royals have “decided to get in bed with the devil to rehabilitate their image,” which has come at great cost to other family members in the past.
During one excerpt from his book, Harry claimed that his brother, Prince William, once accused their father, King Charles III, of having stories “planted” about his wife, Princess Kate, and their children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
The Harry & Meghan star recalled allegedly learning that someone on his father’s communications team “devised and launched a new campaign of getting good press” for the king, 74, and his wife, Queen Consort Camilla. The positive spin stories also came at the “expense of bad press” for both Harry and William, 40, the duke claimed.
Spare hits bookshelves on Tuesday, January 10.
