Devastating rift with Charles who stopped taking Harry phone calls

My father and my brother are trapped. They don’t get to leave HARRY

AN EXTRAORDINARY rift developed between Harry and Prince Charles during Megxit, the prince claimed.

Harry said his father stopped taking his phone calls, leaving him feeling ‘really let down’, adding there was a ‘lot of hurt that’s happened’.

His comments suggest the relationship between the two is damaged, but the duke insisted repairing it was one of his priorities and he will always love his father.

During the Oprah Winfrey interview, Harry also said he felt ‘trapped’ by life as a royal, ‘like the rest of my family’, but did not realise it until he met Meghan.

Detailing the breakdown in communications with his father, Harry said he had three conversations with the Queen and two with Charles when he and Meghan were in Canada after moving there with their son Archie in late 2019.

But Harry said his father, heir to the throne, then ‘stopped taking my calls’ – and asked him to put his plan for the future ‘in writing’.

The duke said he did so, including ‘all the specifics’ such as his and Meghan’s plan to announce they were stepping back as senior royals on January 7 last year.

Asked by Miss Winfrey why his father stopped taking his calls, Harry paused then replied: ‘Because... by that point, I took matters into my own hands. It was like I need to do this for my family.’

He said it was ‘really sad that it’s gotten to this point’ but he had ‘got to do something for my own mental health, my wife’s, and for Archie’s, as well, because I could see where this was headed’.

When Miss Winfrey later asked Harry about his relationship with his father and if Charles was taking his calls now, Harry said: ‘Yeah. Yeah, he is. There’s a lot to work through there, you know?’

In an apparent reference to his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales, Harry added: ‘I feel really let down, because he’s [Charles] been through something similar. He knows what pain feels like... and Archie’s his grandson.’ Harry said he will ‘always love’ his father but ‘there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened’, adding: ‘I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship.’

In a telling insight into his views on how the royals behave, Harry said that they – by which he meant his relatives – ‘only know what they know’.

Meghan then interjected: ‘Or what they’re told.’ Harry continued: ‘Or what they’re told. And I’ve tried to educate them through the process that I have been educated.’ When Miss Winfrey asked him if it was like being in a ‘royal bubble’, Harry replied: ‘Yeah.’

Earlier in the interview, Harry said he had been ‘trapped’ in royal life – and he felt ‘huge compassion’ for his brother Prince William and their father because they were unable to leave it.

‘I was trapped, but I didn’t know I was trapped,’ Harry said. ‘But the moment that I met Meg, and then our worlds sort of collided in the most amazing of ways.’

Miss Winfrey asked him to explain how he was trapped when he was raised in a palace and a life of privilege. Harry said: ‘Trapped within the system, like the rest of my family are. My father and my brother, they are trapped. They don’t get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that.’

Miss Winfrey said the impression the outside world had was that for all the years before he met Meghan, ‘beloved’ Harry was enjoying life as a royal and there was no indication he was feeling trapped.

Harry said that impression came from photographs of him smiling while shaking hands and meeting people – but that was all ‘a part of the job’ and ‘what’s expected’.

He said ‘no matter what’s going on in your personal life’, when there was a public engagement ‘you wipe your tears away, shake off whatever you’re thinking about, and you got to be on your “A” game.’

By March last year, just days before the Covid lockdown began, Meghan, Harry and Archie relocated to Los Angeles, where media mogul Tyler Perry offered them his home as a temporary refuge.

Three months later, they bought their own £11million home and settled in the Santa Barbara area.