Ahead of the release of Prince Harry’s new tell-all memoir, Spare, the royal sat down for two interviews that aired on Sunday, Jan. 8. One with ITV News’ Tom Bradby and another for CBS’s 60 Minutes with journalist Anderson Cooper. In his conversation with Cooper, he detailed how he dealt with the death of his mother, Princess Diana, recounted the explosive fight with his brother Prince William in 2019, and revealed that through everything, he still very much wants a relationship with his family.
When speaking about his mother’s death, the 38-year-old said he never cried until he saw Princess Diana’s casket being lowered into the ground and said “there was never another time” he shed a tear.
“For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was gone,” he revealed to Cooper. “Part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of, maybe this is all part of a plan.”
When Cooper asked if he believed that she “disappeared for a time,” Harry replied, “For a time, and then that she would call us and that we would go and join her, yeah.”
Prince Harry said he believed that “for years,” and shared that Prince William also had “similar thoughts.”
Cooper read a part of the book where Harry wrote: “I’d often say it to myself first thing in the morning, ‘Maybe this is the day. Maybe this is the day that she’s gonna reappear.'”
Harry replied, “I had huge amounts of hope.”
At 20 years old, Harry said he asked to see the police report from his mother’s car crash and looked at photos of the scene because he wanted “proof that she was in the car. Proof that she was injured. And proof that the very paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones that were taking photographs of her lying half dead on the back seat of the car.”
He also drove through the same tunnel in Paris where his mother died while going the same speed Princess Diana was traveling. But he found real healing and a “sense of normalcy” when he served with the British Army in Afghanistan. “That was my calling. I felt healing from that weirdly.”
The royal made headlines last week when The Guardian published part of his memoir that details a physical altercation with his brother Prince William.
Harry shared more details of what happened during his chat with Cooper. “It was a buildup of frustration, I think, on his part,” Harry said of the 2019 fight with William which took place at Nottingham Cottage where Harry and Meghan lived on the grounds of Kensington Palace. “It was at a time where he was being told certain things by people within his office. And at the same time, he was consuming a lot of the tabloid press, a lot of the stories. And he had a few issues, which were based not on reality. And I was defending my wife. And he was coming for my wife — she wasn’t there at the time — but through the things that he was saying. I was defending myself.”
He continued, “And we moved from one room into the kitchen. And his frustrations were growing, and growing, and growing. He was shouting at me. I was shouting back at him. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t pleasant at all. And he snapped. And he pushed me to the floor.”
The interview ended with Harry sharing that he hasn’t spoken to his brother or father, King Charles, in “a while.” but he wants them all to “find peace.”
“The ball is very much in their court, but, you know, Meghan and I have continued to say that we will openly apologize for anything that we did wrong, but every time we ask that question, no one’s telling us the specifics or anything. There needs to be a constructive conversation, one that can happen in private that doesn’t get leaked,” he said.
In the end, Harry shared that he looks “forward to having a relationship with my father and other members of my family. That’s all I’ve ever asked for.”
Prince Harry’s memoir Spare hits book shelves on Jan. 10.
