By Sarah Young and Michael Holden
LONDON (Reuters) -Prince Harry said on Friday that he wanted reconciliation with the British royal family but his father King Charles will not speak to him over a row over his security, and he did not know how long the monarch, who has cancer, would live.
Hours after losing a court battle with the British government over his police protection, Harry gave an emotional interview to the BBC in which he said he did not think he would ever be able to bring his family back to Britain.
“I would love reconciliation with my family,” Harry said. “Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has. He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff, but it would be nice to reconcile.”
Harry stepped down from royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States and lives in California with his American wife Meghan and their two children.
Since leaving, both he and Meghan have been highly critical of the royals in TV documentaries, an explosive interview with U.S. chat show host Oprah Winfrey and most notably in Harry’s best-selling biography ‘Spare’. Now the prince is barely on speaking terms with either his father or his elder brother, heir to the throne Prince William.
In the meantime, Buckingham Palace revealed in February last year that Charles had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer, although aides have been upbeat about how his treatment is progressing.
There was no immediate comment from Buckingham Palace to the prince’s interview.
Harry’s comments came after he unsuccessfully sought to overturn a decision by the Home Office – the ministry responsible for policing – which in 2020 decided he would not automatically receive personal police protection in Britain after leaving royal life.
The prince told the BBC that he was “pretty gutted about the decision”, adding: “We thought it was going to go our way.”
Harry, who has previously claimed that the royal institution had sacrificed him to protect other senior members, said he believed the decision over his security had been made to exert control over him, blaming his father for not doing more.
“I have had it described to me, once people knew about the facts, that this is an old-fashioned, good old-fashioned establishment stitch-up. And that’s what it feels like,” he said.
“There is a lot of control and ability in my father’s hands. Ultimately, this, this could, this whole thing, could be resolved through him, not necessarily by intervening, but by stepping aside, allowing the experts to do what is necessary.”
Harry said some of his family would never forgive him for writing his book, and he accepted that he might not be able to bring his children, Archie and Lilibet, back to his homeland.
“I love my country, I always have done despite what some people in that country have done. I miss the UK. I miss parts of the UK, of course I do. And I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show … my children my homeland” he said.
(Reporting by Michael Holden, Muvija M, David Milliken, and Sam Tobin, editing by Alistair Smout, Sarah Young, Ros Russell)
Comments