Speaking openly about his father, Prince Charles, Prince Harry claims he was raised in a cycle of “pain and suffering” as a member of the British royal family, likening his upbringing to “‘The Truman Show’ and being in a zoo.”
On the most recent episode of Dax Shepard and Monica Padman’s podcast, “Armchair Expert,” which was released on Thursday, Prince Harry spoke candidly for the first time since he and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, spoke with Oprah Winfrey. He also criticized the parenting approach that has been inherited by the royal family.
“I don’t think we should be pointing the finger or blaming anybody, but certainly, when it comes to parenting, if I’ve experienced some form of pain or suffering because of the pain or suffering that perhaps my father or my parents had suffered, I’m going to make sure I break that cycle so that I don’t pass it on,” he stated.
“It’s a lot of genetic pain and suffering that gets passed on anyway, so we as parents should be doing the most we can to try and say ‘you know what, that happened to me, I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen to you,’” said the 36-year-old.
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Upon realizing the impact of his father’s upbringing on him, the king expressed his desire to ensure he raises his children in a different way. Archie, his son with Meghan, turned two years old recently, and the pair is expecting a girl.
“I never saw it, I never knew about it, and then suddenly I started to piece it together and go, OK, so this is where he went to school, this is what happened, I know this about his life, I also know that is connected to his parents so that means he’s treated me the way he was treated, so how can I change that for my own kids?” he stated.
The Duke of Sussex said growing up in the British press’s shadow was likened to “‘The Truman Show’ and being in a zoo.” The main character in Jim Carrey’s film is unaware that his life has actually been one big reality TV show, with everyone he knows performing and everything he does being recorded.
Harry stated that he has desired to break away from the royal family since he was twenty-one. He and Meghan formally opted not to come back earlier this year, having resigned from their royal duties last year.
Harry recalled his inner struggle at the time, saying, “I don’t want this job, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be doing this, look what it did to my mum.” Seeing that he “can’t get out,” he claimed, his perspective shifted to attempting to take advantage of his circumstances and using his privilege to improve the lives of others.
The prince also went into great detail about his relationship with Meghan and the lengths they initially went to in order to keep it a secret. He remembered meeting Meghan in a store, his baseball cap pulled over his eyes so he wouldn’t be recognized.
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“The first time that Meghan and I met up for her to come and stay with me, we met up in a supermarket in London pretending as though we didn’t know each other,” he explained.
Harry claimed that “helplessness” was his “biggest, sort of, Achilles heel” and that he began attending treatment because Meghan pushed him to do so.
“She saw it. She saw it straight away. She could tell that I was hurting and that some of the stuff that was out of my control was making me really angry. It would make my blood boil,” he said.
“Once I started doing therapy, it was like the bubble was burst,” he continued. “I plucked my head out of the sand and gave it a good shake off and I was like, you’re in this position of privilege, stop complaining and stop thinking you want something different — make this different — because you can’t get out. How are you going to do these things differently, how are you going to make your mum proud and use this platform to really affect change?”
The prince claimed that since the pair moved to California, which was a decision based on prioritizing family and mental health, the media landscape has improved.
“So living here now I can actually lift my head and I feel different, my shoulders have dropped, so have hers, you can walk around feeling a little bit more free, I can take Archie on the back of my bicycle… I would never have had the chance to do that,” Harry said of life in California.
Harry continued the conversation regarding mental health by stating that his worry of coming out as weak for sharing his issues had overpowered him.
“Speaking out, especially now in today’s world, is a sign of strength rather than a sign of weakness,” he stated, emphasizing that speaking up is a sign of strength rather than weakness, especially in the current environment.
“If we neglect our collective well-being, then we’re screwed, basically, because if we can’t look after ourselves, we can’t look after each other,” he stated. “If we can’t look after each other, then we can’t look after this home that we all inhabit, so it’s all part of the same thing.”
