Prince Harry appears to take another jab at Royal family
Prince Harry has claimed he did not have a support network after his return from serving in Afghanistan in another apparent swipe at the Royal Family.
The Duke of Sussex made the comments in his new Heart Of Invictus series which was launched on Netflix today.
The five-part documentary features Prince Harry with his wife Meghan Markle appearing only briefly in several scenes to support him.
In the series, Harry also disclosed that he was not aware of the trauma he still had from his mother Princess Diana dying in Paris in August 1997 when he was aged just 12.
Prince Harry said that when he returned from war in 2008, the ‘biggest struggle for me was no one around me really could help’, adding: ‘I didn’t have that support structure, that network or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me.’
He also told the show: ‘Unfortunately, like most of us, the first time you consider therapy is when you are lying on the floor in the foetal position probably wishing you had dealt with some of this stuff previously. And that’s what I really want to change.’
In the Sussexes’ latest project as part of their £80million deal with Netflix, Harry introduces himself as a father of two, dog owner and husband.
The Duke of Sussex is asked by an interviewer: ‘What’s your name?’, and he replies: ‘My name’s Harry.’ The interviewer then says: ‘What do you do, Harry?’
He replies: ‘What do I do? On any given day? I’m a dad of two under-three-year-olds, got a couple of dogs, husband, I’m founding patron of Invictus Games Foundation. There’s lots of hats that one wears, but I believe today is all about Invictus.’
Also in the documentary, Harry and Meghan were seen in a private moment together before a speech at the Salute to Freedom Gala for military veterans in New York in November 2021, in which the duke can be heard confiding in the duchess about his nerves.
Harry is heard saying: ‘We haven’t done this for a while… My heart [is] like “digidigadigadiga”‘. He paces around nervously backstage.
He also spoke in a segment about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma in warzones, giving insight into his own experiences.
He says: ‘Look, I can only speak to my own experience but from my tour of Afghanistan in 2012, flying Apaches, somewhere after that there was an unravelling.
‘And the trigger for me was actually returning from Afghanistan but the stuff that was coming up was from 1997 from the age of 12. Losing my mum at such a young age, the trauma I had I was never aware of.
‘It was never discussed and I didn’t really talk about it and I suppressed it like most other youngsters would have done. When it all came fizzing out, I was bouncing off the walls – what is going on here? – I am now feeling everything instead of being young.
‘The biggest struggle for me was no one around me really could help. I didn’t have that support structure, that network or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me.
‘Unfortunately, like most of us, the first time you consider therapy is when you are lying on the floor in the foetal position probably wishing you had dealt with some of this stuff previously. And that’s what I really want to change.’
Harry also speaks about trauma to Canadian indoor rower Darrell Ling, who tells him: ‘I’m glad you’ve been through this stuff and know how we feel.’
The duke then says: ‘I can’t pretend to know what you’ve been through, but I had that moment in my life where I didn’t know about it but because of the trauma of losing my mum when I was 12, for all those years, I had no emotion, I was unable to cry, I was unable to feel.
‘I didn’t know it at the time. And it wasn’t until later in my life aged 28 there was a circumstance that happened that the first few bubbles started coming out and then suddenly it was like someone shook and it went “poof” – and then it was chaos.
‘My emotions were sprayed all over the wall everywhere I went and I was like “how the hell do I contain this?”. I’ve gone from nothing to everything and I now need to get a glass jar and put myself in it, put myself in it, leave the lid open and my therapist said “you choose what comes in and everything else bounces off”.’
Army veteran Harry – who undertook two tours of Afghanistan, with one from 2007 to 2008 and the other from 2012 to 2013 – also discusses how he never wanted to serve in the Armed Forces after he had children.
The Duke, who is father to Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, tells former Invictus competitors JJ Chalmers and David Wiseman during a hike: ‘I’ve always had myself down as being the dad that I could never be serving while having kids. And you both did, right? It’s never the individual signing up – it’s the whole family signing up.’