Prince Harry told Oprah Winfrey that he was scared “history would repeat itself” before leaving the royal family.
It’s been one year since Prince Harry and Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle exited Buckingham Palace following a slew of attacks from the British media. Now, in a new clip from the couple’s first full-length interview since their exit, Harry tells Winfrey that he was afraid his family would suffer the same scrutiny his mother, Princess Diana, did.
“For me, I’m just really relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife by my side because I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her going through this process by herself,” Harry said in the clip. “It’s been unbelievably tough for the two of us, but at least we had each other,” he added.
Diana’s mistreatment by the British media was heavily documented and has been portrayed on television for years, most recently in Netflix’s series “The Crown.” Harry has been very open about condemning media, highlighting the photographers who chased after his mother the night she died. Diana died in a car crash in 1997 as paparazzi were pursuing her.
The new interview is set to air on Sunday; Winfrey says nothing is off-limits. “Were you silent, or were you silenced?” Winfrey asks Markle in her separate interview. “You said some pretty shocking things here,” Winfrey said.
Despite what people may think, Harry says leaving the royal family was a moment for the couple to take a step back. “It was never walking away; it was stepping back, rather than stepping down,” he said in a 17-minute interview with James Corden last week. He added that his “life is always going to be about public service. Meghan signed up to that, and the two of us enjoy doing that.”
