Prince Harry has made yet another sensational U-turn in his attacks on the royal family – claiming he has ‘huge compassion’ for his father’s wife Camilla, less than 12 hours after he branded her ‘dangerous’ and a ‘villain’ in a 60 Minutes interview to promote his explosive new book.
The 38-year-old’s latest comments about the Queen Consort – whom he reveals in his memoir Spare that he once thought of as an ‘evil stepmother’ – came in a new sit-down with GMA, his third pre-recorded interview in less than 24 hours.
Speaking to host Michael Strahan, who asked Harry ‘what [Camilla] had done’ to prompt both he and his brother to ‘beg’ Charles not to marry her, the Duke of Sussex insisted he actually sympathized with her role as the ‘third person in his parents’ marriage’, claiming that he ‘doesn’t look at her as an evil stepmother’.
‘I have a huge amount of compassion for her, you know, being the third person within my parents’ marriage,’ Harry told Strahan – despite telling 60 Minutes’ Anderson Cooper last night that Camilla’s affair with Charles made her a ‘villain’.
When asked where his relationship with Camilla stands today, Harry conceded that they ‘haven’t spoken for a long time’, but added that he ‘loves every member of his family’ and that when he and the Queen Consort ‘see each other, we’re perfectly pleasant’.
Prince Harry has claimed that he has ‘huge compassion’ for his father’s wife Camilla in a new interview with GMA – less than 12 hours after branding her ‘dangerous’ and a ‘villain’
The Duke is said to have ignored his father Charles’ pleas not to attack his wife in his memoir and accompanying interviews, with Harry launching several barbs at Camilla in his book
Those pleasantries that he claims once existed between them may well be a thing of the past however, after Harry launched a ferocious attack on Camilla, having ignored a plea from his father not to attack his wife.
Harry told Cooper that the Queen Consort was content with bodies – including his own – being ‘left in the street’ as she tried to rehabilitate her image after her long affair with King Charles while he was married to Princess Diana.
Referring back to a 1995 interview in which his mother, Princess Diana, famously referred to Camilla as the ‘third person in her marriage’, Harry said that this admission turned the now-Queen Consort into a ‘villain’, adding: ‘She needed to rehabilitate her image.’
According to Harry, this desire to transform her public image made her ‘dangerous’.
‘That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press,’ he said. ‘And there was open willingness on both sides to trade information and with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.’
The Duke also wrote in his memoir Spare that Camilla ‘sacrificed me on her personal PR altar’ and revealed that he and William asked Charles not to marry her, and accused her of scheming to wed the now King and become Queen Consort.
However, in the same breath that he claimed to GMA he has ‘compassion’ for Camilla, Harry doubled down on his claims that she ‘traded’ stories with the press in order to ‘rehabilitate her image’ after her affair with Charles was revealed.
When asked where his relationship with Camilla stands today, Harry conceded that they ‘haven’t spoken for a long time’
Harry’s claims about feeling ‘compassion’ for his stepmother came less than 12 hours after he branded her a ‘villain’ in a pre-recorded sit-down with 60 Minutes host Anderson Cooper
‘She had a reputation, or image, to rehabilitate, and whatever conversations, whatever deals or trading was made right at the beginning, she was led to believe that would be the best way of doing it,’ he said.
He went on to suggest that Camilla was only ever focused on herself – saying that she ‘has done everything she can’ to ‘improve her own image… for her own sake’.
‘She’s my stepmother. I don’t look at her as an evil stepmother,’ he claimed. ‘I see her as someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to, you know, improve her own reputation and her own image. For her own sake.’
The Duke’s sensational public attack on Camilla was the latest in a line of barbs that he has flung at his stepmother – having already painted what Cooper described as a very ‘unflattering portrayal’ of her in his explosive memoir Spare, which was accidentally released in Spain last week.
But just hours earlier, in an interview that viewers said contained several contradictions, he told ITV’s Tom Bradby that he was not ‘scathing’ towards Camilla in his book. Harry’s contradictions included his denying previous allegations that the Royal Family is racist.
There was also disbelief when Harry told Bradby that whatever he says to William in future will remain ‘private’, despite using his memoirs, TV interviews, a Netflix documentary, and a primetime Oprah special to spill the beans on what his family has said to him and Meghan behind closed doors.
He also insisted to Cooper that he ‘never intended to hurt his family’ with the contents of his book.