Prince Harry tonight said he and the royals don’t “speak the same language”. In a new blow to the King, Harry said he felt “more and more distant from loved ones”.
He said therapy helped and told trauma guru Gabor Maté in a web chat: “I feel better.”
The Duke of Sussex heaped more misery on King Charles and the Royal Family by suggesting they speak “a different language”.
Harry said therapy had helped him but he realised he was “more and more distant from loved ones”.
The Duke of Sussex was speaking for the first time since he and wife Meghan were ordered to quit their UK base Frogmore Cottage.
In a live internet chat with trauma guru Gabor Maté, Harry:
- Admitted he’d used psychedelic drugs to relax and previously took cocaine for a “sense of belonging”.
- Was not playing the victim nor looking for sympathy.
- Said that opening up about his trauma “was an act of service”.
- Said he finally feels “free... better now than ever” and “so strong”.
- Insisted he could not be himself as a royal and always “felt different”.
- Appeared to question the war in Afghanistan and said he was a good fit for the Army because “we tend to recruit from broken homes”.
- Said Meghan was an “exceptional human being” who saved him from being “stuck in this world”
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Harry’s comments in the £20 pay-per-view live stream are set to cause a deeper rift with Charles and brother Prince William.
He told Canadian author Dr Maté how he realised he needed to escape after undergoing therapy.
Harry, 38, said: “I realised that I’d learned a new language and people that I was surrounded by once, they didn’t speak the language – and so I actually felt more pushed aside.”
Harry – who was diagnosed by Dr Maté as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression – was talking from the US, where he lives with Meghan and their two children.
He claimed sharing his trauma in bestseller Spare was an “act of service”.
Of negative reaction, he said: “The more they criticise, the more I feel the need to share.
Dr Maté said Harry’s “rich life” had been “deprived of touch” from his father and grandmother, the late Queen.
Harry said elements of his childhood were incredibly painful and that he always felt slightly different to other royals. He drew parallels with his mum Diana, who died in a road crash in 1997 after divorcing Charles.
Harry said: “I felt strange being in this container and I know that my mum felt the same. It makes sense to me. I felt as though my body was in there and my head was out and sometimes it was vice-versa.”
Asked whether readers would see Spare as him “wallowing in self pity”, Harry replied: “I definitely don’t see myself as a victim.”
Asked about how it felt to “break free” by quitting the UK, Harry replied: “It feels great. Once the book came out I felt incredibly free. I felt a huge weight off my shoulders. Where I am now, what has happened in the process, I’ve lost a lot. But I’ve gained a lot. To see my kids growing up the way they are, I can’t imagine how that would have been possible in that environment.”
He told Holocaust survivor Dr Maté how he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress after seeking counselling over Diana’s death.
Harry said: “When I started to really unpack 12-year-old Harry at the point of where my mother died, that did start to unravel all sorts of other moments.
“It was scary. I turned what I thought was supposed to be sadness to try to prove to her that I missed her, to realising that actually she just wanted me to be happy. And that was a huge weight off my chest.”
Harry said he had used psychedelic drug ayahuasca to “deal with the traumas and pains of the past”.
He said: “It was the cleaning of the windshield, the removal of life’s filters... it brought a sense of relaxation, release, comfort, a lightness that I managed to hold on for a period of time. I started doing it recreationally and started to realise how good it was for me. It is one of the fundamental parts of my life that changed me and helped me deal with the traumas and pains of the past.”
Of cocaine, he added: “That didn’t do anything for me. More a social thing. It gave me a sense of belonging for sure.
“Marijuana is different, that did actually really help me. Alcohol is certainly more of a social thing.”
Harry also claimed a lot of people in the armed forces “didn’t necessarily agree or disagree” with the invasion of Afghanistan, where he served as a helicopter pilot.
He said: “You were doing what you were trained to do.”
There was no comment from Buckingham Palace tonight.
