Prince Harry: "I was probably bigoted before the relationship with Meghan"
In an interview airing this Sunday on 60 Minutes, Prince Harry says he was "incredibly naïve" about how the British press would treat his relationship with his now-wife Meghan Markle. Harry also noted the relationship has given him a new awareness.
"What Meghan had to go through was similar in some part to what [Princess] Kate and what Camilla, [Queen Consort,] went through – very different circumstances," Harry told Anderson Cooper in a clip from the interview released Thursday. "But then you add in the race element, which was what the press-- British press jumped on straight away. I went into this incredibly naïve. I had no idea the British press were so bigoted. Hell, I was probably bigoted before the relationship with Meghan."
"You think you were bigoted before the relationship with Meghan?" Cooper asked.
"I don't know," Harry said. "Put it this way, I didn't see what I now see."
The interview is Harry's first on American television about his new memoir, "Spare," which is set to be released next Tuesday.
In another clip from the 60 Minutes interview, Harry explained why his move away from the royal family has been so 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 Cooper. "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.
"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."
60 Minutes airs Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET, immediately following coverage of the NFL on CBS, and streams on Paramount+.
