Prince Harry has become known for speaking out about his struggles as a member of the royal family, and his recent docuseries, “The Me You Can’t See,” is another platform for him to continue the trend.
The Apple TV+ show, which Harry worked on with Oprah Winfrey, is focused on mental health and features interviews with celebrities and everyday people about the subject matter and how they’re working to overcome their demons.
All five episodes of the show are now streaming and featured several shocking revelations from Harry about his life as a royal and why he ultimately decided with his wife, Meghan Markle, to pack up and leave his royal duties behind.
Here’s a look at six shocking things we’ve learned about Prince Harry from “The Me You Can’t See”:
PRINCE HARRY, MEGHAN MARKLE DEFENDED BY OPRAH WINFREY OVER CRITICISM: ‘PRIVACY DOESN’T MEAN SILENCE’
Harry turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with Princess Diana’s death
Prince Harry revealed that he turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the death of his mother, Princess Diana.
(Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Global Citizen VAX LIVE)
Harry was only 12 years old when his mother, Princess Diana, died in 1997. Several years later, he famously went through a party phase that saw him entering the public eye in a negative light for silly behavior with friends.
As it turns out, the phase was related to Diana’s death.
“I was willing to drink, I was willing to take drugs, I was willing to try and do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling. But I slowly became aware that, OK, I wasn’t drinking Monday to Friday, but I would probably drink a week’s worth in one day on a Friday or a Saturday night,” the Duke of Sussex said in the show.
“And I would find myself drinking, not because I was enjoying it but because I was trying to mask something,” he said, adding that he was “completely unaware of it.”
The royals allegedly turned a blind eye to Harry’s needs
Prince Harry said that pleas to his family for help were ‘met with total silence, total neglect.’
(AP, File)
From the moment that Harry, 36, and Markle, 39, confirmed their relationship, the two were constantly making headlines and were subject to intense scrutiny from the media.
As the relationship continued, things only got worse and Harry said he tried to turn to his family for help, but they were allegedly uninterested.
“I thought my family would help, but every single ask, request, warning, whatever, it is just got met with total silence, total neglect,” Harry revealed. “We spent four years trying to make it work. We did everything that we possibly could to stay there and carry on doing the role and doing the job. But Meghan was struggling.”
Harry ‘suffered’ because of Prince Charles’ parenting
Prince Harry said he ‘suffered’ because of Prince Charles’ parenting.
(Photo by Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage)
Last week, Harry appeared on the “Armchair Expert” podcast and claimed to have been put through “pain and suffering” by the parenting of his father, Prince Charles.
He doubled down on that claim and offered some specifics in “The Me You Can’t See.”
“My father used to say to me when I was younger … ‘Well, it was like that for me, so it’s going to be like that for you,’” the prince told Winfrey.
Reflecting on the way he was raised today doesn’t sit well with the prince. The soon-to-be father of two said Charles’ expectation for Harry and William to accept living under the same pressures as he did “doesn’t make sense.”
“Just because you suffered, that doesn’t mean that your kids have to suffer, in fact, quite the opposite. If you suffered, do everything you can to make sure that whatever negative experiences that you had, you can make it right for your kids,” he added.
The royals tried to stop ‘Megxit’
Prince Harry claims he was told that he couldn’t leave his royal duties behind by his family.
(Photo by Phil Harris – WPA Pool/Getty Images)
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made history when they announced that they were stepping away from their royal duties in early 2020, a move that sparked rumors that Harry was fighting with his family and even surprised them with their announcement.
According to Harry, however, they allegedly not only knew the announcement was coming but tried to stop him from making it.
“Eventually when I made that decision for my family, I was still told, ‘You can’t do this,’” Harry revealed. “And it’s like, ‘Well, how bad does it have to get until I am allowed to do this?’ She [Markle] was going to end her life. It shouldn’t have to get to that.”
Markle didn’t harm herself because she felt it would be ‘unfair’ to Harry
Meghan Markle didn’t act on suicidal thoughts because she didn’t want to put her husband through another death after he lost his mother, Princess Diana, as a child.
(Getty Images)
During her March interview with Winfrey, Markle revealed that she was experiencing suicidal ideation before the royal exit was made.
In the docuseries, Harry explained that his wife didn’t act on such thoughts because she didn’t want to put him through the pain of another loss following the 1997 death of Diana.
“The thing that stopped her from seeing it through was how unfair it would be on me after everything that had happened to my mum and to now be put in a position of losing another woman in my life, with a baby inside of her, our baby,” said the prince.
“The scariest thing for her was her clarity of thought. She hadn’t ‘lost it.’ She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t self-medicating, be it through pills or through alcohol. She was absolutely sober. She was completely sane. Yet in the quiet of night, these thoughts woke her up,” he recalled.
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One of his son’s first words was ‘grandma’
Prince Harry revealed that one of his son Archie’s first words was ‘grandma’ in reference to Diana.
(Getty Images)
Harry has been very open about struggling to cope with the loss of Diana, and it seems that his adoration for his mother rubbed off on his son, Archie.
“I’ve got a photo of [Diana] in his nursery, and it was one of the first words that he said — apart from ‘mama,’ ‘papa,’ it was then ‘grandma.’ Grandma Diana,” the proud father said.
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“It’s the sweetest thing, but at the same time, it makes me really sad because she should be here,” the royal continued.