Prince Harry is defending his decision to speak publicly about the royal family and the British press, saying there has been «absolutely no willingness to reconcile.»
«Every time I’ve tried to do it in private, there have been briefings, leaks and seeding of stories against me and my wife,» he says in a preview of his interview with Anderson Cooper on “60 Minutes”, airs Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET.
and in a 20 second trailer for his interview with British broadcaster Tom Bradby, he says, «it never had to be this way.» That interview will air on UK broadcast station ITV1 and its streaming platform, ITVX, at 9pm local time (4pm ET) on Sunday.
The interviews are scheduled to air just two days before the January 10 publication of his new memoir, «Spare,» which Penguin Random House published. promises will deliver «raw, unwavering honesty» in more than 400 pages. The book will be published in 16 languages and will also be released as an audiobook read by Prince Harry.
Upcoming interviews also follow the six-hour Prince Harry and Meghan Netflix docuseries, which premiered last month and saw the couple accuse the royal family of actively fueling negative media coverage, leading to their decision. to leave their roles as royals and move to the US.
In the ITV1 interview preview, Prince Harry references «leaking and seeding» stories in the press in a series of short clips.
«I want a family, not an institution,» he says.
In clips that don’t identify exactly who Prince Harry is talking about, he says: «They feel it’s better to keep us, in a way, the villains.» In a separate clip, he says: «They have shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile.»
“I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back,» he says.
In his interview with Cooper, Prince Harry repeats the allegations he and Meghan made in the Netflix docuseries, including that family members and their spokespersons worked to plant news in their favor.
«You know, the family motto is ‘never complain, never explain,’ but it’s just a motto and it doesn’t really stick,» he tells Cooper.
«They’ll feed or have a conversation with the correspondent, and that correspondent will literally spoon information and write the story and at the end they’ll say they contacted Buckingham Palace for comment, but it’s all commenting on Buckingham Palace.» claims Prince Harry. «So when we’ve been told for the last six years, ‘we can’t issue a statement to protect you,’ but you do it for other family members, there comes a point where silence is betrayal.»
Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
The upcoming interviews also follow Prince Harry and Meghan’s explosive 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey in which they claimed, among other things, that an unnamed royal member, later clarified to be neither the late Queen Elizabeth II nor her late husband, Prince Philip, expressed «concerns». «about how dark the skin of the couple’s son, Archie, could be before his birth.
The Associated Press contributed.