He says he’s not naive. At least not any longer. But Harry, dear Harry, you should surely realise by now that life is not so simple. You can’t say the things you’ve said, do the things you’ve done, write the things you’ve written, and then come swanning home and expect everyone to welcome you with open arms. That’s just not how it works.
In a 40 minute filmed interview with GQ Magazine, Prince Harry insists that he wants reconciliation with his family. With everything else that’s going on in the world, he says, the most important thing is to reconcile. He urges everyone to “ let go of the past”. He insists there’s enough drama in the world without continuing any issues with family.
Drama, you say? But you and Meghan have created more drama in the past six years than some of our greatest playwrights. Let go of the past, Harry? Did you hear yourself say that? You wrote 416 pages of the past in your vitriolic book, Spare, detailing every aspect of your earlier life that caused you grief. Is that what you call “letting go?” More like letting rip.
And, while we are on the subject of grief, perhaps it would be honest to acknowledge upfront that this GQ interview was part of your contractual obligations to promote your Masterclass on grief, for which you were paid. It is littered with references to “Masterclass”, dredging up the traumas of your troubled past — which, of course, are real and profound. But this was not some random, off the cuff interview delving into your inner thoughts about resolving your family conflicts: it was part of a money-making gig. That will make some people doubt its sincerity.
Having said all that, Harry is engaging and likeable in the interview, just as he was when I reported on him when he was a little boy. He seems endearingly down-to-earth and unassuming. He’s funny, too. However, I can’t help but come back to that impression that he is naive.
You can’t go firing off sentences such as “some people don’t want it to work out” (with reference to family reconciliation) without questions being asked about what that means. It sounded very much like a dig at his brother and/or father. His spokesman insists that Harry was not pointing a finger at either. It was, we are to understand, a “general” point. If that’s true, then Harry should have thought it through more clearly beforehand and explained himself far better. As it is, we are left wondering who he’s talking about: if not his family, then is it the men in grey suits in the Palace? Is it the universe in general? Or anyone who happens to be at odds with their own relatives? Clumsy at best.
The Prince kept bringing the conversation back to the idea that by sharing his experience of grief he could help others cope with theirs. You could almost hear the lucrative clicks of new subscribers to the Masterclass. Therein lies the awkward blurring of the lines between royalty and commerce.
Harry says he’s not looking for sympathy. He acknowledges that, as a Prince, he has a support network and has been able to afford different forms of therapy. It could, he says, have been a very different situation if he had not had that therapy. Do I hear another subscriber click?
I don’t want to seem unkind, and I have a lot of time for Harry, but this was not his finest hour.
I think he’s better than this, but he’s going to have to find a way to show it before any hope of reconciliation with his family can bear fruit.