Prince Harry kicked off the press tour for his new memoir, “Spare,” with a bang on Monday, as trailers dropped for two duelling interviews airing next Sunday.
The Duke of Sussex sat down with Anderson Cooper for “60 Minutes” and Tom Bradby of ITV for separate interviews airing on January 8 ― three years to the day that Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, announced they were stepping back as working members of the royal family.
In excerpts from Bradby’s 90-minute interview with the Duke, Harry says he wants “a family, not an institution,” and says “they’ve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile.”
He also talks about King Charles and Prince William. “I would like to get my father back,” he says. “I would like to have my brother back.”
The trailer for Cooper’s interview with Harry was also released Monday morning.
In that trailer, the Duke says he and Meghan have attempted to navigate stepping back out of the public eye, but “every single time I’ve tried to do it privately, there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife.”
He also gives insight into the royal family’s relationship with the press, saying that royal correspondents are “spoon-fed information and write the story.”
“At the bottom of it, they will say that they’ve reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. But the whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting,” Harry said. “So when we’re being told for the last six years, ‘We can’t put a statement out to protect you’ ― but you do it for other members of the family. There becomes a point when silence is betrayal.”
Both interviews are scheduled to air two days before “Spare” comes out on January 10.
“I’ve worn many hats over the years, both literally and figuratively, and my hope is that in telling my story — the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned — I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think,” Harry said in a press release announcing his new memoir.
He added that he was “excited for people to read a firsthand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful.”