News that an invite had apparently landed for Charles’ coronation on May 6 – a glitzy affair that will be watched by millions – comes as Harry said he always “felt different” from the rest of his family.
Harry’s remarks, which appeared in Sunday newspapers in Britain, were made in an interview with Gabor Maté, a Hungarian-Canadian psychologist.
This interview, which aired live on Saturday, was about emotions and mental health. Harry did not mention the request to leave Frogmore Cottage, the residence he and Meghan have stayed in during their rare visits to the UK. He also did not say if they would attend his father’s coronation in May.
Since the publication of Harry’s memoir ‘Spare’, which details his dysfunctional relationship with his family, his and Meghan’s attendance at the coronation have been the subject of feverish speculation in Britain: Will they be invited? Will they come? Will they eclipse Charles? Does anyone care?
But Harry has previously spoken of wanting to mend relations with his family and hasn’t ruled out attending the coronation. Asked about it in January, Harry said “the door is still open” and “the ball is in their court”. It’s unclear whether his calculation on whether to come may have changed after Frogmore’s expulsion.
During his interview on Saturday, Harry told Mate that “I certainly felt throughout my life, my younger years, I felt slightly different from the rest of my family.”
“I felt strange being in that container, and I know my mother felt the same way, so it makes sense to me,” he said of his mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car accident in Paris in 1997, when he was 12 years old. .
Harry said he felt “a huge responsibility not to pass on any trauma or negative experiences that I had as a child or as a man growing up” and that he made sure “to smother” his own children with “love and affection”. .”
Harry and Meghan retired as senior royals in 2020 and now live in California with their two children, three-year-old Archie and one-year-old Lilibet. Archie’s fourth birthday is May 6, Coronation Day.
In the 90 Minutes interview, the Duke also opened up about going to therapy and using drugs to deal with the trauma of his mother’s death.
The Duke said he was initially worried about going to therapy, saying: “I thought if I went to therapy it would kill me and I would lose everything I had left, everything what I had managed to keep from my mother.”
“It turns out that was not the case. I didn’t lose that, it was the opposite,” he said. “I turned what I thought was supposed to be sadness into trying to prove to her that I missed her by realizing that she really wanted me to be happy, and that was a huge weight on my chest.”
He also said cocaine “didn’t do anything for me” but marijuana “really helped me.”
In their conversation, Mate said he believed the Duke suffered from attention deficit disorder, or ADD. Harry joked in response: “Thanks for the free session.”
The couple also spoke about Harry’s ten years of service in the British Armed Forces and in Afghanistan, where he completed two tours.
Harry said he was a “fantastic candidate” for the armed forces because of his troubled past. “I don’t know how it is in the rest of the world, but certainly in the UK we tend to recruit from broken homes, people who are willing to do it,” he said.
After Mate said he didn’t agree with the war, Harry replied, “Many of us didn’t necessarily agree or disagree, but you were doing what you were sent to do. “
Harry also described Meghan as “an exceptional human being”.
“People said my wife saved me,” he said. “I was stuck in this world, she came from a different world and helped me out. My partner is an exceptional human being and I will be forever grateful to her for the wisdom and space she has able to give me.
“We both had our own things with our families,” he added.