The Duke is all but estranged from the Royal Family – and his decision to give another bombshell interview has once again highlighted one of their major concerns
Prince Harry recently spoke of his desire to make amends with his family – but his decision to give yet another bombshell interview has only served to widen the gulf, an insider has revealed.
Harry has come under fire for remarks he made to the BBC, in which he divulged: “I don’t know how much longer my father has, he won’t speak to me because of this security stuff. It would be nice to reconcile.” He also suggested the King could have changed the outcome of his security case, claiming it felt like an “establishment stitch up”.
Now an insider has revealed why a reconciliation with the royals is unlikely to happen. “There is zero trust,” the source told HELLO!. “The family feels that private conversations with Harry are not possible.”
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A former friend added. “He needs the world to forgive him. His family have never bent on their stance, which is that he should not take up issues in public.
Even a source sympathetic to the Duke, told the publication: “It’s taken its toll. He sees things everywhere, he picks battles with everybody and that’s tiring. You can’t live in permanent battle mode. You’re a 40-year-old man. You’ve got to stop fighting the world.”
Harry spoke to the BBC shortly after losing his legal challenge with the Home Office over the levels of security he and his family are entitled to when in the UK. Buckingham Palace released a rare statement after the interview: “All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Harry said: “I don’t know how much longer my father has – he won’t speak to me because of this security stuff but it would be nice to reconcile.”
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He added that “some members of my family will never forgive me” for writing his memoir Spare, and went on to say: “It would be nice to have that reconciliation part now. If they don’t want that, that’s entirely up to them.”
Harry further described his court defeat as a “good old-fashioned establishment stitch up” and blamed the Royal Household for influencing the decision to reduce his security.
His approach has once again been criticised by experts. David Yelland, a former newspaper editor and current public relations advisor, has since pinpointed three key errors made by the Duke in the interview.
Firstly, he noted that Harry “went in hot”, saying: “You never go into an interview hot with your blood up. You have to be cool, and he wasn’t cool. You can see it in his body language and what he said.”
Secondly, Mr Yelland pointed out that the Duke “was not prepared because he thought he was going to win” the case. “And then the third mistake, which he made probably because he was angry and he did expect to win, is that he volunteered what has become an uncontrollable global news story,” he said, referring to speculation prompted by Harry about the King’s health. “This interview didn’t need to be like this,” Mr Yelland told the Express. “It could have been so much better, or maybe it didn’t need to happen at all, now.”
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Harry and Meghan relocated to California in 2020 after stepping back from their roles as senior working royals. The couple has since built a new life in Montecito, California, with their children. But Harry has continued to fight a legal battle over the loss of publicly funded police protection when he visits the U.K. — a decision made by the government’s Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC) following his royal exit.
Though he has returned to Britain on a number of occasions, his visits have been brief, heavily guarded, and without Meghan or their children. He has argued that without secure protection, it is too risky to bring his young family with him.