It’s been over two months since the bombshell interview between Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. In it, the couple described how Markle’s mental health apparently suffered at the hands of the British monarchy, prompting their exit from royal duties in 2020. Now, in a new interview with Oprah for a docuseries on mental health, Prince Harry elaborated on how awareness on the subject is personal for him, as well and why the relentless attention on him and his relationship still angers him.
The five-part new Apple TV+ show, The Me You Can’t See, has Prince Harry and Oprah dive deeper into the mechanisms of mental health struggles. In Prince Harry’s view, his own struggles are tied directly to the toxicity of paparazzi culture which started with his mother, Princess Diana, and continued with his wife Meghan Markle. He told Oprah,
The clicking of cameras and the flash of cameras makes my blood boil. It makes me angry. It takes me back to what happened to my mum, what I experienced as a kid. I was so angry with what happened to her, and the fact that there was no justice at all ... The same people that chased her through that tunnel photographed her dying on the back seat of that car.
The tragedy of Princess Diana’s death in 1997 reverberated throughout the world. But, according to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the cycle of relentless attention that borders on harassment continues to this day. The two revealed in their original interview with Oprah that the constant negative attention on Markle even prompted her to consider suicide while pregnant.
Apparently, Prince Harry has turned to darker thoughts in the past, too. It wasn’t discussed in their original interview, but in the latest one, he admits that as an adult he has been willing to “mask” these struggles in toxic ways. He said,
I was willing to drink, I was willing to take drugs, I was willing to try and do the things that made me feel less like I was feeling. Not because I was enjoying it but because I was trying to mask something.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle revealed to Oprah that the royal family, also known as “the Firm,” didn’t truly help them when they were struggling with these issues. They are, apparently, seeking to rectify that now that they live in the United States. Prince Harry has supposedly been in therapy for four years now, at Markle’s encouragement, but in the new Apple TV+ docuseries, Prince Harry is shown trying Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for his anger and anxiety. EMDR is a technique that attempts to alleviate suffering and stress through reliving and, ultimately, rewiring traumatic memories.
The Me You Can’t See docuseries doesn’t only feature Prince Harry (who also executive produces it), however. Along with health experts, Oprah, Glenn Close, and Lady Gaga all speak to their own individual experiences. Their aim is to destigmatize talking about mental health. All episodes are currently available on Apple TV+.
