Image Source: ABC [1]
As more and more revelations from Prince Harry's upcoming memoir, "Spare," [2] trickle out ahead of its Jan. 10 release, the prince has sat with various news outlets to discuss the book. After Harry's bombshell interview with Anderson Cooper [3] on "60 Minutes" [4] aired on Sunday, Jan. 8, the Duke of Sussex spoke to "Good Morning America"'s Michael Strahan the following day to rehash some of the biggest revelations from his book, including the rift between him and his brother, his strained relationship with the royal family, and how he's coped with his mother Princess Diana's death.
Strahan asked Harry how he thinks Diana would feel about his and Prince William's ever-growing rift. "I think she would be sad," Harry said, acknowledging that Diana would not enjoy seeing her only sons fighting. But that doesn't mean he thinks she would disagree with the road he's taken in deciding to expose the unfair treatment he's endured as a royal.
"I think she would be looking at it long term to know that there are certain things we need to go through to be able to heal the relationship," he added. "I have felt the presence of my mom more so in the last two years than I have in the last 30."
Harry said there is only one hard road to reconciliation. "I don't think that we can ever have peace with my family unless the truth is out there," he noted.
Based on leaks that have made their way into the British press, in "Spare," Harry makes explosive revelations [5] about his life as a royal, from claiming his father, King Charles III, made distasteful jokes about rumors that he's not Harry's real father to an instance where Prince William allegedly physically attacked Harry in 2019.
Read ahead to find out what else Harry discussed during his "GMA" interview.
- Harry believes the British monarchy had a "missed opportunity" for representation with his wife, Meghan Markle [7]. The prince spoke candidly about the monarchy's need to modernize and said they could benefit from acknowledging their unconscious bias the same way he did with his own. "It's not racism, but unconscious bias — if not confronted, if not learned and grown from, then that can move into racism. But there was an enormous missed opportunity with my wife," Harry said. He added, "Representation is what she said to me right from the beginning . . . And I, as a privileged white man, didn't really understand what she was talking about."
- Harry hopes to privately reconcile with the royal family without involving the British press. Harry's book candidly analyzes his view of the royal institution and his family, and he believes his memoir, where he tells his side of the story, is the only way they'll all be able to make peace. "I don't think that we can ever have peace with my family unless the truth is out there," he said. "There's a lot that I can forgive, but there needs to be conversations in order for reconciliation, and part of that has to be accountability. I just hope that there's a way that we can have a conversation that is trusted within that conversation that isn't then spilled to the British press."
- Harry believes the British press would make it "unsurvivable" for him and Meghan to return to their royal roles. As he's similarly expressed in the past, Harry doesn't think it's possible for him or Meghan to return as working royals. "Even if there was an agreement or an arrangement between me and my family, there is that third party that is going to do everything they can to make sure that that isn't possible," Harry said, referring to the British press. "Not stopping us from necessarily going back, but making it unsurvivable, and that's really sad because that is essentially breaking the relationship between us."