Prince Harry "wanted out from the crazy cult of royalty" since childhood but only managed to leave after meeting Meghan Markle as she was a "catalyst" for it, a friend of the Sussexes has claimed.
Journalist Bryony Gordon, who worked with Harry during her mental health campaigning in 2016, says the couple's new Netflix documentary is "neither contrived nor fake".
Ms Gordon, who has formed a bond with the couple over the past six years and has even had afternoon tea with the couple at the Sussexes' home, said the Netflix series portrays "a pretty normal couple in pretty abnormal circumstances".
She said the Netflix documentary shows Harry's struggles over the years, for example when he says he was chased on foot by paparazzi 30 or 40 times.
In the series, there is a clip showing a young Harry on a skiing holiday with his brother Prince William, cousins Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie and his mum Princess Diana.
Harry, now 38, talks about the harassment he and his family faced on the trip - and in the series there is even footage of Diana asking one photographer to leave her family alone.
The Duke of Sussex said: "Paparazzi used to harass us to the point where we had to be forced into smiling and answering questions to the travelling press pack.
"That made me feel really uncomfortable from the get-go."
While Harry could not leave the Firm at such a young age, meeting his wife Meghan Markle allowed him to take the plunge, according to Ms Gordon.
Writing in The T elegraph, Ms Gordon said: "It shows what I have long suspected: that he has probably wanted out from the crazy cult of royalty since he was a schoolboy at Eton, and perhaps even as early on as at prep school, when as a nine-year-old boy he was forced to pose for photographs with his brother and cousins while on a skiing holiday in Klosters.
"In free-spirited Meghan, he not only met his match, but also the catalyst for a process that had been in place since childhood."
Harry himself has said he wanted to leave the Royal Family long before he and Meghan finally stepped down as working royals in 2020 and moved to the US.
Appearing on the Armchair Expert podcast back in May 2021, he told host Dax Shepard: "In my early 20s, it was the case of 'I don't want this job, I don't want to be here, I don't want to be doing this, look what it did to my mum. How am I ever going to settle down and have a wife and a family when I know it's going to happen again'.
"Because I know, I've seen behind the curtain, I've seen the business model, I know how this operation runs and how it works, and I don't want to be part of this."
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey just months before, Harry said he didn't know he was "trapped" in the Firm until he met his wife.
He added his brother and father were also "trapped", but that they don't "get to leave".
Yesterday, a new Netflix trailer about the second part of Harry and Meghan's documentary - which is coming out next Thursday - was released.
Viewers are treated to never-seen-before photos of the pair on the dance floor and sharing the evening with their guests.
As the pair talk to the camera, Meghan initially forgets the name of their first dance as the pair discuss the song they chose and the lyrics in the 38-second clip.
Meghan says: "I just really wanted the music to be fun", then asks Harry: "Even our first dance. Song of a thousand dances? I always get it wrong," before singing some of the lyrics like "Mashed potato, do the alligator".
It comes as a source close to Prince Harry told The Sunday Mirror he was "delighted" to see the first three episodes of the documentary air on Thursday and has " absolutely no regrets ".
The insider claims Harry wants King Charles and Prince William to watch the show to get a full understanding of the struggles he and Meghan have faced.
And he is keen to make "some kind of peace" with them, despite reports suggesting the show has driven a deeper wedge between him and the royals.
"Harry is delighted with the narrative of the documentary and how he and Meghan came across," said the source, who is a close friend of his late mother, Princess Diana.
"The reason for doing this was to share their truth on their lives.
"He feels it told the story he wanted the world to hear and has absolutely no regrets."
