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Prince Harry tells 60 Minutes about his decision to speak publicly

Prince Harry on public break from family
Prince Harry tells 60 Minutes about his decision to speak publicly | 60 Minutes 00:58

Prince Harry said he's tried to keep his conversations with the British royal family private, but to combat stories in the tabloids, he's been forced to make his concerns public.

"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," Harry told Anderson Cooper in an interview airing Sunday, January 8, on 60 Minutes. "You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain, but it's just a motto."

"There's a lot of complaining and a lot of explaining… being done through leaks." Cooper said to Harry in a clip from the interview that aired today on "CBS Mornings."

"They will feed or have a conversation with the correspondent," Harry explained. "And that correspondent will literally be spoon-fed information and write the story. And 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. 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. It becomes-- there becomes a point when silence is betrayal."

Harry is releasing a new memoir next week, titled "Spare." Sunday's interview with 60 Minutes will be Prince Harry's first on U.S. television discussing the book.

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