National Post (National Edition)
`More comfortable' with The Crown than tabloid fare, Harry says
Press was `destroying' his mental health, TV host told
WE ALL KNOW WHAT THE BRITISH PRESS COULD BE LIKE AND IT WAS DESTROYING MY MENTAL HEALTH . ... SO I DID WHAT ANY HUSBAND AND WHAT ANY FATHER WOULD DO. IT WAS LIKE, `I NEED TO GET MY FAMILY OUT OF HERE.' BUT WE NEVER WALKED AWAY. — PRINCE HARRY
The British tabloids wreaked havoc on the lives of Prince Harry and Meghan before they stepped down from the royal family — so much so, that Harry says he prefers the depictions in Netflix's The Crown to the tabloids that were “destroying” his mental health.
In an exclusive interview with talk show host James Corden released last night, the prince sat down in an open-air bus as the two toured Los Angeles, getting up to various hijinks while pausing some moments for serious chatter.
During one moment in the interview, Corden asks Harry about the experience of “walking away” from his royal duties and if he felt it necessary.
“It was never walking away. It was stepping back rather than stepping down. It was a really difficult environment, as I think a lot of people saw. We all know what the British press could be like and it was destroying my mental health,” says Prince Harry. “This is toxic. So I did what any husband and what any father would do. It was like, `I need to get my family out of here.' But we never walked away.”
Last week, Buckingham Palace announced Harry and Meghan had made a final split with the royal family, and would not be returning as working members and would lose their patronages.
No matter what decisions are made “on that side,” Harry says, referring to Buckingham Palace, “I will never walk away. I will always be contributing. But my life is public service, so wherever I am in the world, it's going to be the same thing.”
Earlier in the interview, Harry talks about the streaming series The Crown. The show brought on some controversy with the November release of season four, which centred around the late Princess Diana's marital demise with Prince Charles. British officials had requested a warning be placed at the beginning of the show to inform viewers that the depictions in the show were a work of fiction.
“Without this, I fear a generation of viewers who did not live through these events
IT WAS STEPPING BACK RATHER THAN STEPPING DOWN.
may mistake fiction for fact,” said British Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden in November.
But Harry slightly defends the show to Corden, saying it doesn't “pretend to be news; it's fictional but it is loosely based on the truth.” The show gives a rough idea of the lifestyle and pressures of putting duty and service above all else, including family, and the repercussions of that, Harry says.
“I am way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories that are written about my family, or my wife or myself,” he tells the host.