Known all his life for being a part of the royal family, Prince Harry is the younger son of King Charles III and Diana, Princess of Wales, having his own share of spotlight and gossip around his life, having his own share of spotlight and gossip around his life.

The rumors followed him rumors followed him , especially after after his departure from England, when he , when he  also renounced the Royal Family, along with his wife, the actress Meghan Markle, in 2020.  But besides that, what is there to know about Harry?

With the launch of his autobiography Spare,in 2023,in 2023, Harry released some impactful thoughts about his life, grief, and moments that changed him as a person. Let’s diverge into these moments and what he has said about them.

Afghanistan war

The Prince had military duty, and worked as an air controller in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008 until he was forced to leave after the media revealed his location and role. But that wouldn’t be his last time in Afghanistan, as he returned in 2012 as helicopter pilot and gunner until he left again in 2013.

About his time in the war, he writes in the book:

“I was also Widow Six Seven. I’d had plenty of nicknames in my life, but this was the first nickname that felt more like an alias. I could really and truly hide behind it. For the first time I was just a name, a random name, and a random number. No title. And no bodyguard. Is this what other people feel like every day? I savored the normality, wallowed in it, and also considered how far I’d journeyed to find it. Central Afghanistan, the dead of winter, the middle of the night, the midst of a war, while speaking to a man fifteen thousand feet above my head—how abnormal is your life if that’s the first place you ever feel normal?”

His relationship with his dad and the tabloid harassment. 

Is no surprise that his life was abnormal, but what we wouldn’t know until he blurted out in his memoir, is what were his feelings about it, and the impact that media gossip caused on both relationships with his dad and wife.

Among various  made-up stories, one that stood out the most was published by the tabloid The Sun, with the following headline: “Harry’s girl on Pornhub”. The article stated that Meghan Markle was somehow a porn actress and that she had some work displayed in an adult website, disrespecting not only her but also her career. 

The truth is, those videos that The Sun claimed as “porn” were only scenes from the drama show called “Suits”, starring Meghan. After this, The Sun published a note addressing their mistake and apologizing.

In the book, Harry addresses this situation and shows that his father’s lack of support affected him. 

“The Sun ran a correction for their porn story. In a tiny box, on page two, where no one would see it. What did it matter? The damage had been done. Plus, it cost Meg tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. I rang Pa yet again. Don’t read it, darling— I cut him off. I wasn’t about to hear that nonsense again. Also, I wasn’t a boy anymore. I tried a new argument. I reminded Pa that these were the same shoddy bastards who’d been portraying him as a clown all his life, ridiculing him for sounding the alarm about climate change. These were his tormentors, his bullies, and now they were tormenting and bullying his son and his son’s girlfriend—did that not inspire his outrage? Why have I got to beg you, Pa? Why is this not already a priority for you? Why is this not causing you anguish, keeping you up at night, that the press are treating Meg like this? You adore her, you told me so yourself. You bonded over your shared love of music, you think she’s funny and witty, and impeccably mannered, you told me—so why, Pa? Why? I couldn’t get a straight answer. The conversation went in circles and when we hung up I felt—abandoned.”

The loss of his mother 

When Princess Diana died, Harry was only 12 years old, a child. And as we know, losing a person is really difficult, even more so if it is your mother. 

However, there are certain types of grief and there are certain types of mourners. Prince Harry was the type to carry the grief with him, but in a form of denial, which can be ten times worse for someone whose experience with grief is so little. 

In 2023, the Prince gave an interview for Anderson Cooper on the newscast 60 minutes, and talked about how he spent years thinking that his mother was somehow alive and would reappear some day: “I just refused to accept that she was gone (…) Part of she would never do this to us’ and also part of ‘maybe this is all part of the plan”

In the book, he also mentioned this hard time of his life: “I wasn’t crying because I believed my mother was in that hole. Or in that coffin. I promised myself I’d never believe that, no matter what anyone said. No, I was crying at the mere idea. It would just be so unbelievably tragic, I thought, if it was actually true.”

Losing his mom at such a young age has surely impacted Harry in so many ways. An example of that is the fact that he wrote in his memoir, Spare, that every day we wake up feeling like she’s going to call and ask him to join her: “I often say it to myself, first thing in the morning, maybe this is the day”

The accident 

Sometimes it’s even more difficult to cope with grief when there is a catastrophic accident involved. 

Princess Diana died in Paris after a car crash that killed not only her but also her partner Dodi Al-Fayed and the driver Henri Paul. They were entering a tunnel while  being pursued by paparazzi when Henri lost control of the car and ended up colliding with a pillar. 

When Harry got older, he wanted to see the police report from the crash, as a sort of way to see proof that she was in the car and was in fact injured. 

Seeing the report gave him some insights about her death that he never thought of before: “I hadn’t been aware before this moment that the last thing Mummy saw on this Earth was a flashbulb” – wrote Harry in his book.

It’s such a cruel truth, the fact that even in her most vulnerable moment, she was harassed and disrespected, and also a horrible thing for a son to be aware of. 

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, his private secretary, denied Harry from looking at the other photos, the only pictures he saw were the ones showing the back of Diana’s head. He talks about it in the interview for Anderson Cooper and says: “I will be eternally grateful to him for denying me the ability to inflict pain on myself by seeing that. Because that’s the kind of stuff that sticks in your mind forever”

Closure 

After he saw proof from the accident and began to understand more his grief and cope with it, Harry decided to take one step further on the journey to acceptance. 

On a trip to Paris, he decided to drive through the same tunnel where his mother’s accident took place, asking the driver to go at the same speed Henri Paul was driving when the car crashed.

In the book, he recalled that “It had been a very bad idea. I’d had plenty of bad ideas in my twenty-three years, but this one was uniquely ill-conceived. I’d told myself that I wanted closure, but I didn’t really. Deep down, I’d hoped to feel in that tunnel what I’d felt when JLP gave me the police files—disbelief. Doubt. Instead, that was the night all doubt fell away. I got the closure I was pretending to seek. I got it in spades. And now I’d never be able to get rid of it.”

40 years

The Prince had a tough journey throughout his life but is determined to keep on moving and constructing different paths. He and his wife have now bought the film rights to the book Meet Me at the Lake written by the author Carley Fortune, known for her other successful book Every Summer After.

The couple, who already produced a docuseries about their life on Netflix called Harry & Meghan, is apparently trying to continue in this industry. It’s not known yet if the adaptation it’s going to be a film or a series, but it’s surely awaited. 

With tons of plans and projects, Harry seems to be enjoying experimenting a new life, aside from royal duty and free to his own ideas. Cheers to that and to his 40s!

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The article above was edited by Maria Esther Cortez.

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