Prince Harry refuses to deny rift between himself and Prince William in revealing ITV documentary 

Prince Harry has admitted that he and William are travelling on ‘different paths’ in the first public acceptance of a rift between the brothers.

In a candid interview, the Duke of Sussex acknowledged there had been deepening tensions between himself and William, following months of speculation about the state of the brothers’ relationship.

He made the comments in a TV documentary broadcast last night where he also attacked the press over the public scrutiny that he and wife Meghan Markle have faced. 

Harry said: ‘I will not be bullied into playing a game that killed my mum.’

The extraordinary attack against the media comes after he and Meghan launched legal action against several British newspapers. 

Palace aides had repeatedly denied reports of a rift between the Sussexes and the Cambridges, who had once been championed as the Royal family’s ‘Fab Four’.

But asked how much of the speculation was true for an ITV documentary which aired last night, Harry pointedly refused to deny a falling out.

The 35-year-old initially laughed in response to the question, then added: ‘Part of this role, part of this job and this family being under the pressure it is under, inevitably stuff happens.

‘But look, we are brothers, we will always be brothers. We are certainly on different paths at the moment but I will always be there for him and, as I know, he will always be there for me.’

He added: ‘We don’t see as much as we used to because we are so busy but I love him dearly and the majority of stuff is created out of nothing.

‘As brothers, you have good days, you have bad days.’

Harry’s comments came during an emotional interview with ITV presenter Tom Bradby – a long-time friend of the prince’s.

Bradby’s hour-long documentary, ‘Harry & Meghan: An African Journey’, followed the royal couple during their official tour of Africa last month.

His comments about William, 37, are likely to prove embarrassing for Buckingham Palace, which has sought to downplay reports of strains between the Cambridges and Sussexes.

Tensions reportedly arose in the run-up to last year’s royal wedding, with Harry apparently accusing his elder brother of failing to support him and Meghan.

William is also understood to have privately expressed concern about the whirlwind romance, while Kate is said to have struggled to get on with Meghan.

Matters came to a head when the Sussexes decided to move out of Kensington Palace to Windsor and split their joint household, moving their staff over to Buckingham Palace. The two couples have also parted ways over their charitable work, with Harry and Meghan set to launch their own royal foundation next year.

The break-up was said to be a mutual decision and one that was the result of a natural divergence of ways, as William’s role as heir to the throne evolves.

Despite the issues, the two Duchesses were pictured enjoying a family day out with their children in July as they watched Harry and William take part in a charity polo match, and sources have said the two couples are getting on better nowadays. 

Harry made the comments during the documentary, Harry & Meghan: An African Journey.

The ITV production followed Harry and Meghan’s ten-day tour of southern Africa. 

In the documentary, Harry described the way he deals with the pressures of his life as being a matter of ‘constant management’, adding: ‘I thought I was out of the woods and then suddenly it all came back, and this is something that I have to manage.

‘Part of this job, and part of any job, like everybody, is putting on a brave face and turning a cheek to a lot of the stuff, but again, for me and again for my wife, of course there is a lot of stuff that hurts, especially when the majority of it is untrue.

‘But all we need to do is focus on being real, and focus on being the people that we are, and standing up for what we believe in.

‘I will not be bullied into playing a game that killed my mum.’

Prince Harry also gave a searingly honest insight about the ‘festering wound’ his mother’s death left in his life.

In the interview, he revealed that every click and flash of a camera in the public eye gives him ‘the worst reminder of her life as opposed to the best’.

In the documentary, Harry said that he felt significant pressure being a member of the royal family in the spotlight, and was particularly stressed by the memories of his mother’s relationship with the press.

He was asked: ‘Do you feel at peace in a way yet or is it still a sort of wound that festers?’

To which he replied said: ‘I think probably a wound that festers. I think being part of this family, in this role, in this job, every single time I see a camera, every single time I hear a click, every single time I see a flash it takes me straight back, so in that respect it’s the worst reminder of her life as opposed to the best.

‘My mum taught me a certain set of values that I will always try to uphold, despite the role and the job that sometimes that entails.

‘I will always protect my family and now I have a family to protect.

‘So everything that she went through, and what happened to her, is incredibly important every single day, and that is not me being paranoid, that is just me not wanting a repeat of the past.

‘If anybody else knew what I knew, be it a father or be it a husband, be it anyone, you would probably be doing exactly what I am doing as well.

‘Everything that she went through and what happened to her is still incredibly raw every single day. That is not me being paranoid, that is me not wanting a repeat of the past.’ 

Meghan also opened up during an emotional interview with broadcaster Tom Bradby for the documentary, which aired tonight.  

The Duchess is ‘existing, not living’ and is struggling with the pressures of royal life and media scrutiny. 

She said: ‘It’s hard. I don’t think anybody can understand that. In all fairness, I had no idea, which probably sounds difficult to understand, but when I first met Harry, my friends were so excited, my US friends were happy because I was happy. 

‘But my British friends, they were sure he was lovely, but they said I shouldn’t do it because ”the British tabloids will destroy your life”. 

‘Because I’m American I very naively didn’t get it. It’s complicated.’

Meghan added: ‘I never thought that this would be easy, but I thought it would be fair and that’s the part that’s really hard to reconcile.

 ‘I’ve said for a long time to H – that’s what I call him – it is not enough to just survive something. That’s not the point of life. You’ve got to thrive and feel happy. 

‘I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip. I tried, I really tried. 

‘But I think what that does internally is probably really damaging.’ 

Bradby pointed out that her position of privilege, wealth and fame comes with scrutiny.

Meghan responded: ‘When people are saying things that are just untrue, and they are being told they are untrue but they are allowed to still say them, I don’t know anybody in the world who would feel that’s OK and that is different from just scrutiny.

‘I think the grass is always greener. You have no idea. It is really hard to understand what it’s like.

‘The good thing is that I have got my baby and I have got my husband and they are the best.’

When Meghan was asked about the impact the intense public scrutiny has had on her ‘physical and mental health’ and how Harry is being ‘protective’ of her after what happened to his mother, she replied: ‘Look, any woman especially when they are pregnant you’re really vulnerable and so that was made really challenging, and then when you have a new born – you know…

‘And especially as a woman, it’s a lot.

‘So you add this on top of just trying to be a new mom or trying to be a newlywed it’s, well…’

She continues: ‘Also thank you for asking, because not many people have asked if I’m OK. But it’s a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes.’

Tom asks her: ‘And the answer is, would it be fair to say, not really OK, as in it’s really been a struggle?’ Meghan, visibly upset, then replies: ‘Yes.’ 

Meanwhile, Harry voiced his desire to leave the UK and revealed he is considering living in Africa one day.

He said: ‘I don’t know where we could live in Africa at the moment.

‘We’ve just come from Cape Town, that would be an amazing place for us to be able to to base ourselves, of course it would.

‘But with all the problems that are going on there I just don’t see how we would be able to really make as much difference as we’d want to.’

Harry also revealed Africa will be the main focus of his and Meghan’s work in the future.

He said: ‘The rest of our lives, especially our life’s work will be predominantly focused on Africa, on conservation.

‘There are 19 commonwealth countries across this continent, there’s a lot of things to be done, there’s a lot of problems here but there’s also huge potential for solutions.

Speaking about the trip, he added: ‘We’ve traversed across Africa, we’ve met a hell of a lot of people. There’s a lot of work to do. 

‘We have to make sure the money spent on this trip is worth it so the public understand what we’re trying to do.

‘We’re certainly not trying to lead the way, we’re trying to do what is right

‘We want to be authentic.’ 

Meghan was asked about the interest people have in her, not only as a member of the royal family but also of her experience as a woman of colour in Britain, in the US, and in being part of ‘the world’s most famous mixed-race couple’. 

She said: I would hope that the world would get to a point where you just see us as a couple who is in love.

‘I don’t wake up every day and identify as anything other than who I have always been.

‘I am Meghan and I married this incredible man. This to me is just part of our love story.’

During the royal tour, baby Archie was introduced to Nobel Peace Prize-winning anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the tour, which Meghan described as a ‘really special’ moment.

She said: ‘It is not lost on us. I think Archie will look back at that in so many years and understand that right at the beginning of his life he was fortunate enough to have this moment with one of the best and most impactful leaders of our time. It is really special.’

Harry said he feels ‘deeply connected’ to Africa, and he regularly visits Botswana as it provides a ‘sense of escapism, a real sense of purpose’.

It was ‘a nice place to get away from it all’ after his mother died, he added.

Harry said that Archie ‘clearly loves Africa as well’, adding: ‘He was looking out the window. He has found his voice now and he was bouncing up and down.

‘He was making more noise than he has ever made before and he is smiling the whole time.”

The Duchess received an outpouring of support from Twitter users on Friday after a clip from tonight’s documentary was released in which she admitted she was ‘not really OK’. 

Within an hour, #WeLoveYouMeghan became the top trending topic on the social media platform, with users offering positive messages in the wake of the Duchess’s recent media scrutiny. 

And the outpouring of support was repeated tonight, with social media users flocking to praise both Harry and Meghan. 

One user wrote: ‘Dunno how you can watch this and not feel a slither of sympathy. I couldn’t go through what Meghan’s been subjected to now, never mind throughout pregnancy & whilst becoming a new mom. Absolutely mind blowing.’

Another said: ‘I respect Meghan. She’s not asking you to adore her, to worship at her feet, but you treat justly and fairly. She’s willing to fight for that because surviving is not enough. Her husband is unwilling to be bullied to appease you and your entitlement.’ 

A sense of duty… but respect has to be earned: JAN MOIR says Harry and Meghan’s grovelling documentary could damage their cause 

By now, we all know the Harry and Meghan drill. Their royal mission in life is to ‘shine a light’ on hardship, to raise awareness and funds for good causes, while still being ‘authentic’ in themselves.

And truly, they are to be commended for this.

If they so wished, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could slink behind the vegan silk curtains at Frogmore Cottage, they could hunker down on their Soho House velvet sofas and tell the world to go to hell, while raising baby Archie in the most private and pampered environment that only a century of British royal prerogative can provide.

However, they clearly have a sense of duty that precludes the luxury of such seclusion. Yet they want the best of both these worlds, which is where the trouble starts.

Harry & Meghan: An African Journey (ITV) told the story of their first official foreign tour, which took place in South Africa.

They hoped to focus on important humanitarian issues in a country still riven with gender and racial inequality, where dirt-poor black people remain trapped in townships and life expectancy rates are among the lowest in the world.

As the cameras started rolling, it was clear this could have been one of the most inspiring and amazing royal tours of all time, especially at the beginning when Meghan met young women in Nyanga township, the so-called ‘murder capital’ of the country.

‘I am here with you as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of colour and as your sister,’ she informed the small crowd that had gathered. 

Her words might seem glib to first-world ears, but there is no telling how stirring they might seem to young women who could see and hear, through the Meghan prism, of a more hopeful future for themselves.

Later the duchess told documentary presenter Tom Bradby that she had added those words herself, with Harry’s approval.

Bradby was given special access to the Sussexes for this hour-long documentary, and he reminded us more than once of the depth of his 20-year friendship with Prince Harry. 

The two men had often talked privately, we were informed, about grief and mental health issues. Yet did we really need to hear that Tom had a few issues of his own, and had to take time off work to deal with them last year?

Bradby clearly thought this gave him a special insight into the byzantine workings of the prince’s mind, who – never mind the poverty and social blight he was witnessing – was soon voicing concerns about the media spotlight on himself and his wife. 

As the couple vented, Bradby crept around like a 17th century court flunkey, tugging his flaxen forelock and holding an orange pomander to his nose at any perceived criticisms of H&M.

‘This is a couple that feel themselves on a moral mission to challenge what they feel is wrong,’ he whispered at one point.

The shocking thing was Harry and Meghan weren’t talking about luckless Africans they met who have struggled so long and so hard to overcome their ill-fated lot in life. They were talking about themselves.

On the banks of a nameless river deep in the veldt, Harry talked emotionally to the ITV cameras of his difficulties.

With the velvety embrace of the African night unfolding behind him, there he stood, this motherless son, his eyes shining like headlamps in the gathering gloom.

Every time he heard a camera click, he said, it made him think of Diana. He was still struggling, his pain was endless.

One sympathises with Harry, still seeking to apportion blame for the death of his mother 22 years later. 

This is unbearably sad in itself and we have all witnessed and understood his pain. Yet there are many stages of grief, and he seems unable or unwilling to move on from the first soul-crushing phases.

If that is really how he feels about the situation, if this royal life for him is so unendurable and intolerable, then perhaps he really should desist from his duties.

Perhaps he and Meghan should opt for a quiet private life, give up the proselytising, retreat to the country. Everyone would entirely understand. Especially with a wife who complains, as Meghan did to Bradby, that no one ever asks how she is doing and that their life together is ‘existing and not living’.

In conclusion, Bradby said the Sussexes hope to turn the ‘relentless media interest in them into a positive force for good’. If so, they are going a funny way about it.

For one wonders at them visiting Angola, one of the most unfortunate countries in the world, and then using it as a backdrop to complain about their own problems.

All those wonderful people the Sussexes met across the continent, all those desperate problems they encountered, were condensed into a thin, doomed chorus that no one was listening to, while attention focused on the grandiose oratorio of their unfeigned pain, and the jolt of their first-world grievances.

Think of their plight compared to the teenage girls taking boxing lessons to fight off sexual predators who rape them with impunity. The tiny children in Angola who are still having their limbs blown off by land mines and the adults who have coped with mass killings and endless wars, not to mention a life without limbs themselves.

If you can bear witness to all of that misery and still stand in front of a camera, biting your lip or with a tear in your eye, as you complain that behind the ramparts your life is tough, then you are tone deaf to the concerns of real people and blind as to how you are perceived.

Harry and Meghan think that people are mean to them.

They have to learn that respect has to be earned, not demanded. And that grovelling documentaries such as this damage rather than support their cause.

‘How can you watch this and not have sympathy for Meghan?’ Twitter reacts to Duchess’s ‘absolutely mind-blowing’ struggles as she lays her emotions bare in interview

Royal fans have paid tribute to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry after an ITV documentary about their trip to Africa aired tonight, highlighting the couple’s struggle with public scrutiny.

Harry & Meghan: An African Journey looked into the couple’s ten-day tour of southern Africa, watching them interact with locals and open up about dealing with media attention. 

The Duchess received an outpouring of support from Twitter users on Friday after a clip from tonight’s documentary was released in which she admitted she was ‘not really OK’. 

Within an hour, #WeLoveYouMeghan became the top trending topic on the social media platform, with users offering positive messages. 

And the flood of support was repeated tonight, with Twitter users flocking to praise both Harry and Meghan after their searingly honest interviews. 

One user wrote: ‘Dunno how you can watch this and not feel a slither of sympathy. I couldn’t go through what Meghan’s been subjected to now, never mind throughout pregnancy & whilst becoming a new mom. Absolutely mind blowing.’

Another said: ‘I respect Meghan. She’s not asking you to adore her, to worship at her feet, but you treat justly and fairly. She’s willing to fight for that because surviving is not enough. Her husband is unwilling to be bullied to appease you and your entitlement.’ 

While a third added: ‘How can you seriously NOT feel for Harry and Megan? How can you say that they live an easy life? Money is not enough to lead a happy life.’ 

The documentary saw Prince Harry discuss his struggles with mental health, while admitting his mother’s death still haunted him. 

Meghan, meanwhile, opened up about her struggles with the British media and how she was unprepared for the level of scrutiny she has faced since marrying the Prince. 

Sympathy for the couple was widespread online and the couple topped Twitter trends in the UK. 

However, the reaction wasn’t all positive. 

One user wrote: ‘ I wouldn’t feel too sorry for them. We (as taxpayers) gave them millions recently so they could do some decorating.’

Another added: ‘If only they had a tour of the UK? You know, have a chat to the people/plebs who pay for everything they have. How good that would have been. Oh well.’

While a third commented: ‘I’ve really gone off Harry and Megan. The more I see from them at the moment, the more they annoy me. They could do with taking a leaf out of Will and Kate’s book.’

Some fans appeared worried for Prince Harry’s mental health after a candid interview. 

One commented: ‘Think it’s clear to see that Harry carries some deep scares from the death of his mum & it’s clear the fear he carries & the overwhelming need to protect his wife but I think he needs help, it’s crippling his wellbeing I think.’