The Royal Insider Duncan Larcombe: I’m not buying it, Harry
Are his claims of contentment disingenuous?
If the Duke of Sussex has finally found happiness in his new life, surely it’s time he told his face. In his latest instalment of ‘the world according to Prince Harry’, the embattled royal laid bare the feelings of being stuck inside the very institution he now seems to blame for his mother’s death.
And speaking on the podcast Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Harry said he desperately wants to ‘break the cycle’ of ‘genetic pain and suffering’ caused by Prince Charles’ parenting.
Ouch. Once again Harry has used his new-found platform to publicly trash his father, this time blaming him for much of what has gone wrong.
Supporters of the Sussex camp praised the Duke’s ‘courage’ at speaking so candidly about his own battle with mental health since he was a child. Harry’s courage, they said, would inspire others to share their own battles with mental health.
But to his detractors, this was just more of the same from a couple who seem to blame everyone else for their woes, as Harry’s critic-in-chief Piers Morgan took to Twitter to accuse the royal of being a ‘spoiled brat’.
As someone who has known Prince Harry since he was an angry teenager, I think he deserves credit for how he has faced his demons, sought help and tried to find a better way forward.
The trauma of losing his mum as a child was clearly made worse by the fact he was encouraged to take the stiff-upper-lip approach, as he paraded in front of the crowds at her funeral. Hardly surprising, therefore, that these childhood horrors would come back to haunt him in later life.
But if Harry believes those struggles are all in the past, that the nightmare of being in what he likened to a cross between The Truman Show and living in a zoo is over, then he is mistaken.
I can barely remember a time when Harry looked and sounded so unhappy. No matter how many times he tells himself he is now free, I am yet to be convinced.
If freedom means cutting yourself off from everything you once held dear, then yes, Harry has achieved a great deal.
If, however, it means being able to find your own happiness and fulfilment on your own terms, then Harry and his family have a very long way still to go.