Transcription
Megan had already decided she didn't like them. There was never an opportunity given for Harry to integrate Megan into the family because Megan had come in with her arms crossed and she was already mad. I can never get past them in this race. The hierarchy is set. So, she just didn't like them. And so, everything they did, she decided was worthy of her disdain and her disappointment in them personally. And what bothers me is that Harry is just so weak. So weak and pathetic. He could never have described to her, articulated in any way, how their roles could be just as satisfying and fulfilling, if not more so, because there'd be less stress on them as a couple. But instead, he let Megan take the reigns about a world she knew nothing about. For Megan to have informed Harry what he ought to feel about an atmosphere that she doesn't even want to learn about was so colossally lazy of Harry, so morally lazy of him to let her take the reigns and tell him how it's going to be.
Hello, how are you? Welcome to my channel. My name is Tier Denise and we are going to keep going in betrayal by Tom Bower. Now, yesterday we were talking largely about Megan's approach to the royal family and how she had no intention of joining them on their terms. When they tried to explain to her the way things were going to be and the way it would be for her as a member of the royal family, she must just glazed. Her eyes would glaze over. She would smile and sort of condescending way like, "That's all well and good for you guys, but it's not going to be like that for me." Which is why later when she said she'd never been given any instruction. It's because she had never received any instruction. But it's not that it hadn't been given. Somebody had been talking to her. She had not been listening. So, her heart didn't get any instruction. She did not feel as though she had been informed because she wasn't listening when they tried to inform her.
There was never this idea that the rules applied to her because she was an outsider. She believed that she would always remain outsider status in that I'm an American. I didn't grow up into this. It it wasn't thrust upon me as a burden of my existence. I'm choosing to be here, which means that if it gets uncomfortable for me, I just choose not to participate in that part. I think Megan displayed some of the most unhealthy aspects of American culture in the sense that there is sometimes this individualism that is raid and toxic and unhealthy and unproductive. And she came to England, she meets the royal family and she believes that she can still remain an individual in this collective group. And if that if if you don't want to be part of the royal family, I think it does take a certain person who is willing to sacrifice everything for very little return uh for very little personal return. It's not like you're a billionaire. It's not like you get to do all the things you want to do all the time just because your grandmother happens to be the queen. It would be a very specific person who could join the royal family and do it well and do it happily and find a lot of personal fulfillment in the long hours and the thankless work. And I don't think that she had any idea what the pace would be for a royal. It's those are long days. I mean, you look at Princess Ann and the way that lady works. I mean, it's from nonel dark, but she's committed to the role that she has been given. And for Megan who thought it was just going to be one long stream of parties and good times and rich living and do what you want to do and nobody's going to tell you because I mean after all you're royalty. She had no ability to conceive that her imagination of the royal family was inconsistent with reality because she had believed it. It was the truth.
Which is another thing that she'd been talking to Harry about. Harry, if you believe that the family has been treating you bad, that's the truth. They've made you feel a certain way. And it really doesn't matter if their intentions were not there. What matters is how you actually feel. Your feelings trump reality every time. So for Megan, who has a belief that what you feel is what is real, she felt like she didn't need to obey the rules. She felt like it was something for them and not for her. And that was her reality. That was her truth. So, she was destined to be a failure. We also talked yesterday about her weird inability to think about tomorrow when it comes to manipulating her future and how she's consistently biting the hand that feeds her in a way that just seems absolutely insane. I am not suggesting that her manipulative behavior, drawing people close so you can use them later, is a way to live your life. That's a horrible way to live your life. But for somebody who seems to have no moral compass whatsoever, it would just seem that in her Makavelian approach towards life, drawing those that you need for tomorrow, drawing them closely, becoming friends with them, doing what you needed to do to keep those relationships alive so that tomorrow you can crawl on their shoulders and keep climbing up the ladder. It seems to me that while that's quite abusive, that would be an obvious move to make if your only goal was get to the top. But she's so limited in her perspective, so limited in her ability to conceive of what tomorrow would bring, so impatient for all the riches now, for all the accolades now, for all the power now, that she just goes around torching bridges like it's her job. Over and over and over and over again, she would let her emotions just completely dominate. She'd have diva fits. She was disorganized. She was unrelenting in her castigation of others when they didn't meet her standards. Never once did she think, "I've got to be nice to people. I have to curb my desire to just eviscerate this person because tomorrow I might need them." It was all the time. Just however I feel, I'm just going to, you know, let my mouth run. If I want to be rude and cruel and unkind, in the moment, my power in this moment means more to me than power tomorrow. So if in the moment she could make somebody feel really bad, she would choose that rather than think, I ought to be nice today cuz tomorrow I might need them. And it would behoove me to hold my tongue. And that's really the aspect we're going to get into some more today. We're going to talk a lot about her abusive staff, the way William and Catherine were feeling, their shock and amazement that Harry would yoke himself to this person who seemed to have no breeding, no care, concern for others, no desire to at least meet the royal family, even halfway. I mean, she seemed to joy in bucking the system as though that was a personal credit to her. So, that's what we're going to get into today.
This chapter in chapter 3 is called the tea party. If you don't mind, get your finger out of my face. Meghan Markle snapped at William. The tea time reconciliation meeting between the brothers and their wives had spun out of control. Tea had been served in the usual traditional atmosphere befitting a medieval palace. The formalities failed to camouflage the tension. Sitting in the Cambridge's recently redecorated 20 room Kensington Palace apartment soon after the Sussex's returned from their honeymoon in June 2018, Harry watched the confrontation escalate. William's dislike of Megan had been obvious after his warning to Harry before their engagement. "It's gone too quickly," William had said about the speed of Harry's relationship with the American actress. William's suspicion of Megan was echoed by his wife. "Kate," Harry was convinced, saw Megan as a threat. The antagonism had started once their engagement was announced. Kate had not appreciated a street wise, self-confident rival. Clever and stylish, Megan was clearly unwilling to obediently serve the British people as a member of the royal team. As Megan would later tell the tennis champion Serena Williams, "The royal family hates ambition that was associated with vulgar pushness."
Now, I'm hoping that Tom Bower is reflecting Harry's opinion of the situation, that it was Harry's opinion that Catherine was unappreciative of a streetwise, self-confident rival, and that she considered Megan to be clever and stylish. I think none of us would even put Catherine and Megan in the same stratosphere. Those two are so different, it's crazy. And the idea that Catherine could ever have felt like Megan was a threat to her. No. No. Surely she knows that Megan was no threat. I think if there was a threat at all, it would maybe be a threat to the monarchy, a threat to safety and stability, a threat to peace in the home, but a threat as far as who's the most stylish and who's the most clever and who's the most likable. It's not even a competition. Even before their engagement was announced, Kensington Palace officials had spotted Megan's shock about the limited money and the perks available to the royals. She had expected marriage to transform her from a starlet into a star to shine in the spotlight. Compared to Americans imagining of palatial splendor, Harry's allowance was less than a Hollywood Bem movie actor. That must have been intolerable. As they entered the Cambridge's apartment, Harry had spotted Kate's disapproval of Megan's torn jeans. Previously, Kate had disapproved of Megan wearing jeans to Wimbledon. Megan's behavior, Kate decided, was incomprehensible. After all, Megan would not have gone to the Kentucky Derby and ripped denim. That is so typical of Megan. I'm an American. I don't know where would I want to wear. I mean, it's just tennis, right? It's like, yes, but don't wh why just flout tradition simply because you think you can? Why would you come and embarrass yourself by being underdressed at an event where people typically have a pretty stringent dress code? Why do you not know the way you ought to behave here? Why why wouldn't it even enter into your pretty little head? To seek some guidance about what to wear so that you don't embarrass yourself. Harry had been similarly distraught about Kate's visible disgust after Megan asked to share her lip gloss. Watching Megan scrape gloss under her finger, Kate's glacial freeze had destroyed any suggestion of friendship. I was a hugger, recalled Megan. I didn't realize that that's really jarring for a lot of Brits. For a lot of humans, I don't want you hanging on my neck. Get off. Harry's opinion. While Megan spread kindness, the Camidages responded with spite. Naturally, Megan's undisguised sustain for the palace's hierarchy had aroused Kate's distrust. Kate did not hide her suspicions. Her restraint had been as hostility. For her part, Megan was contemptuous of Cambridge's aloofness, it being a far cry from her own personal style. Kate was boring. William had cried himself to sleep at Eden. Both were so detached from her reality. Megan believed that Harry was right to feel the Camides were jealous of her successful career. Just like the royal family had been envious of Diana's, even after two years in London, Megan did not understand how seriously the Camidages and all the members of the royal family took their roles. The royal family was a job. Duty, hard work, and self-sacrifice without a big paycheck was alien to someone brought up in Hollywood. But Megan had laughed off Charles's suggestion that she should continue working as an actress. Hollywood, she knew, had rejected her. Isn't it crazy that Megan's over here believing that the Camidages are jealous of her successful career? What successful career? Which career was that? the one that she was about to lose because they were about to let her go off of suits. Her typing away at her little TIG website, her little blog. I mean, what exactly were they supposed to be jealous of?
In this clash of two worlds, Megan was irritated by the royals inflexible hierarchy. More than ever, she resented their ordered and impersonal lifestyle, and that birth dictated seniority. Impatient with the protocols of the royals relationships, she mocked that even in private encounters relations curtsied to acknowledge another seniority. She could not understand that the curtsy was to preserve the royals's aura. How ridiculous, she thought, and proclaimed so publicly in years to come that Harry greeted the queen with a bow of his head followed by your majesty. Granny, here's the thing. I'm not even saying that she couldn't have been a little bit amused by a formality she was uncomfortable with or unfamiliar with. Maybe say that unfamiliar with this kind of courtesy in private. Um and I think that any American who discovered that there was this kind of formality behind closed walls might have been surprised. I didn't know that. Um and maybe even you could if you were dating Harry even say, "Oh, I didn't know that." And it might make you laugh to him. Not that you're mocking him or anything, but just maybe maybe even laughing at your own ignorance of not knowing the way things are. I think I would have been caught off guard by the formality behind closed doors. I didn't know that you bowed even behind closed doors. But I just would never have in public made fun of that. It's not their fault they do it that way. It's my ignorance. They didn't know it and now I know it. So, okay. But that's their family culture. Like I I'm so surprised by somebody who thinks that because she's unfamiliar with the thing, then that makes it dumb. With that certainty, there was no mystery about Megan's unwillingness to curtsy to Kate. Her own talent and popularity in that reckoning proved her superiority. Megan gave the impression that she regarded Kate as an untalented prude who ought to show the respect she, Megan, deserved. As seeming proof, Kate had recently hired Virginia Chadwick Healey, a former Vogue editor and stylist, to match Megan with a youthful, lighter haircut in a new wardrobe. Some even came to believe that Megan saw herself as a more fitting future queen than Kate. Gosh, can you imagine? I also don't understand. I remember this now. It's all coming back to me when we read Revenge. Tom Bower does not seem to have an over fondness for Catherine, even in the fact that he constantly calls her Kate, which I think we're supposed to call her Catherine now. Um, I I remember him acting as though she was at any point in her existence kind of like fuddy duddy and that Megan's entrance into the family sort of ignited in her a desire to be more fashionable. And I'm just like, Tom, I don't think Tom's good about talking about fashion. He gets it wrong a lot. Like he said yesterday that Megan was wearing a red dress to her One Young World speech, but she famously wore that ugly pants suit. Anyway, I I think he's wrong about Catherine feeling as though she needed to keep up with the Joneses and get a stylist so that she could be as chic as Megan. God forbid that Catherine ever tried to mimic anything that Megan wears.
While Megan's certainty of purpose had seduced Harry, her talents had alarmed his brother and Kate. Both knew Harry's problems. He'd had a damaged youth, confused by drink and drugs and therapy after his mother's death, and had been unable to cement a balanced relationship with a woman. Both evidently saw Megan as a threat rather than an ally. Yet, Megan didn't seem to understand that she could not compete with Kate, the future queen, nor accept that her task was to support her. The Camides believed that Megan was not reconciled to what was deemed her destiny in London. She lamented Harry's unlikely chances of one day being king, just as she regretted the possibility that she would never be the queen. With Megan's encouragement, Harry started to move beyond the palace's control. Instead of the likes of his colorless uncle Edward, Harry refused any longer to accept his fate as a superfluous spare. So on that fateful day, amid all those conflicting, undisguised emotions, the two couples engaged in strained small talk over tea. Then the conversation switched to the cause of their disagreements. Unable to hold back, Megan took the initiative to list their disputes. Kate's unhappiness about the Sussex's failure to give her children Easter presents, Megan's assertion about her superior fashion expertise, and finally, Princess Charlotte's bridesmaid's dress. The dress had been the lightning rod for their acrimony. Giovanchi's Clare Wait Keller had produced what was considered a poorly fitted wedding dress for Megan. Similarly, the dresses for the bridesmaids were baggy. So much so that just before the wedding, Kate's three-year-old daughter, Charlotte, had burst into tears after trying on her dress. A Kensington Palace staffer had summoned AJ Miruri, a West End tailor. The whole thing, Mir Puri later revealed, was ill-fitting and needed to be recut. The text messages after Kate told Megan about the problem reflected their antipathy. Megan texted, "I told you the tailor has been standing by since 8 a.m. here at KP. Can you take Charlotte to have it altered as the other moms are doing?" Kate replied, "No, all the dresses need to be remade." When they met for Charlotte's fitting, Kate was anxious. Kate had given birth to Louis just 3 weeks earlier. The 36-year-old's emotions were clearly still fragile. The additional stress caused by Megan's attitude during the refitting of Charlotte dress provoked Kate to have a tearful outburst. not only about the dress, but also about the numerous complaints of Megan's treatment toward her staff. Even the queen was disturbed by reports that Megan spoke in a harsh, boss-like manner. Megan was puzzled. The palace's language was alien. The familiar British undertone of asking, "Are you really going to?" implying disapproval was the opposite of Megan's literal, unequivocal style. A senior Buckingham Palace official had spotted the problem. Megan cannot understand that you can't speak to the royal family in normal language. Everything is spoken in code. Arguments had erupted about Megan's acceptance of freebies, especially clothes and cosmetics. In Megan's opinion, her aids veto of gifts appeared disloyal. After they had also disapproved of her broadcasting controversial opinions, she became annoyed. She wanted them to be governed by her rules. Samantha Cohen, Amy Pickroll, and her other Kensington Palace aids described her behavior as unreasonable. Passively aggressive and manipulative were among the critical terms they used about Megan's behavior. It's not my job to coddle people, Megan retorted to a palace official after being urged to be a little less strident. Those bad vibes disturbed Kate. On the day of the breastfeeding, she burst into tears. Despite Kate's distress, she had sought peace by personally delivering a bunch of flowers to Megan. That offering had not resolved the situation. Any sentimentality had vanished long ago. During the reconciliation tea party, she abruptly interrupted Kate. Megan declared, "The cause of their problems was because of your hormones. You talk about my hormones? Kate, wideeyed. We're not close enough for you to talk about my hormones. It's no big deal, Megan replied. It's baby brain. That's rude, Megan. William interrupted, jabbing his finger at her face. That's not how things are done here. Her Californian babble irritated William, scorching his wife had crossed the line. There had to be a lot of trust because the Camidages listened to everyone's advice, and even more trust before listening to criticism. As he watched the argument, Harry wanted revenge, not just for the attacks on his new wife, but for the torment throughout his life. The Cambridge's negativity, he was certain, infected the whole family, and through them, the media. Everyone had a hostile agenda against him and Megan. He lived in a palace of lies and liars. Kate's particular antagonism, he decided, was deep rooted. Cool, focused, and competitive by nature. Catherine, in his view, had spotted Megan as a challenger. In style and modernity, Kate feared that Megan had the edge. the top dog unwilling to compromise or sympathize. In Harry and Megan's opinion, Catherine had spurned Megan's offer of friendship. What really surprises me about Harry and Megan's immediate decision that William and Catherine were against them is that they haven't really all been together for very long. So, to already at this point be like super big enemies where Catherine could bring flowers to Megan to say, "Hey, look, I'm sorry that things went off the rails the other day and I'm sorry I got upset." and she tried to extend an olive branch and Megan's like that's just too little too late though. I mean, your outburst, your crying was over the top and I just don't I just don't see how we go forward from here. I think I need to cut you out. You're toxic. Like that whole attitude towards William and Catherine when you haven't had a long enough time to really establish a relationship. Both parties are quite busy. Harry and Megan would have been busy planning the wedding and whatever little pitly jobs had been cast their way to do. William and Catherine are obviously very busy. It's not like every single day they were living together in an atmosphere where they could have like grown tired of each other quickly. So why is it that Harry and Megan are so unable to develop a relationship with Catherine and William? Because Megan had already decided she didn't like them. There was never an opportunity given for Harry to integrate Megan into the family because Megan had come in with her arms crossed, her lips in a purse, and she was already mad. She was already mad that there was no way for her to get ahead of William and Catherine. She would always be behind them. It's like a child who's upset because their older brother will always be older than them and I can never catch up. Well, that's how Megan reacted and she was just angry about it. I can never get past them in this race. The hierarchy is set. So, she just didn't like them. And so, everything they did, she decided was worthy of her disdain and her disappointment in them personally. And what bothers me is that Harry is just so weak. So weak and pathetic. He could never have described to her, articulated in any way, how their roles could be just as satisfying and fulfilling, if not more so, because there'd be less stress on them as a couple. But instead, he let Megan take the reigns about a world she knew nothing about. For Megan to have informed Harry what he ought to feel about an atmosphere that she doesn't even want to learn about was so colossally lazy of Harry. So morally lazy of him to let her take the reigns and tell him how it's going to be. He's like his brain is just so soft and malleable. It's beyond comprehension how he let her take the reigns in this and drive a wedge between his brother when she doesn't know anything.
Harry's conviction that Kate had spurned Megan's offer of friendship fed Harry's irritation about the media's collusion in glorifying Catherine. Carefully orchestrated by Buckingham Palace's communications team, Kate had become the beautifully dressed idol to win popular support for the monarchy. But the public Harry fumed failed to see the truth. Kate's status concealed her insecurities and ambition. By later quoting the novelist Hillary Mantle, Harry appeared to sympathize with her description of Kate as trapped within an institution. the plastic princess and a gloss varnished mannequin selected only for breeding. Harry was given the words to express his disdain. Harry's always being given the words by somebody else to express his own personal feelings. He's got no ability to say his own thoughts. He reads something and thinks, "You know what? I think that's right. I think she's plastic princess and I think my brother did only choose her for breeding. I think she's nothing more than just a pretty little girl in a skirt. And you know, I married a woman of substance." Catherine, he said, fitted the mold of what was expected of a royal spouse. Despite the obvious hurt caused to William, Harry hinted his brother's marriage was from duty, not love. He married for love. That's why the person he's married to is showing herself to be so unloving. That doesn't make sense to you? Don't worry. Over time, you'll see she's great. It never appeared that Megan sincerely wanted a friendship with Catherine. Other than a publicist, Isabelle May and Soho House global membership director Marcus Anderson, she had not forged sincere relationships with any Brits. All those emotions infected the peacemaking tea party. Even entering the 20 room apartment, had reawakened Tererry's resentment about his inferiority to William. The Sussexes had come from Nottingham Cottage, their two-bedroom home with inadequate heating and famously no ice maker. condemned by Megan as so small. The cramped darkness within Kensington Palace was starkly inferior to the Cambridge's extravagantly decorated living room. It was adorned by a 17th century Dutch landscape painting called the Negro Page, showing a young black man holding a white man's horse. Harry's handicap was his inability to express his rivalry coherently. Memories of their intense childhood fights resurfaced along with wrinkling about his smaller bedroom. Yet now he also begrudged William for failing to persuade their father to give him more money, a better home, and a role in the state. Megan would not have understood a senior palace courtier's observation. Harry should have sucked the lemon. The sentiment that after leaving school, the prince should have accepted the bitter reality of being the spare and solved his own predicament. Back in the Cambridge's drawing room, unconcerned by Harry's peak, William's formal politeness evaporated as his temper rose. He asked Megan for an apology to Kate and then struck another blow. Megan, he said, was a difficult person who had enemies of half the staff. Harry interrupted. Megan had no problems with the staff, he insisted. The problem was caused by Williams paring the media's lies about Megan's childhood and her divorced parents. Thomas Markle's frequent media appearances attacking his daughter were fueling the flames. Whatever the explanation, that afternoon, the couples parted on bad terms. They'd crossed the Rubicon. The split between the brothers was sealed. Reconciliation would be difficult, if not impossible at this point. Returning to Nottingham Cottage, Megan and Harry were distraught. Sitting in their drawing room, it would be easy to surmise that Megan's outlook toward her new family hardened, and that beyond Harry's comprehension, his wife was consumed by a new determination. She hated people who refused to recognize her importance and wished to destroy those standing in her way to stardom.
Chapter 4. William and Harry. Before he met Megan, Harry had enjoyed a happy relationship with William and Kate, albeit that he had seen less of his brother since Prince George's birth in 2013. At first, everything appeared better after he met Megan. When Megan arrived, recalled a senior Buckingham Palace official, "It seemed so good on so many counts. Everyone fizzed." Battered by his mother's death, Harry had fallen into Megan's arms, the needy casualty of a dysfunctional family. Caring for the spare had been beyond the royal institution's agenda. Even the queen ignored Harry's fate, a surprise to those who recall how her sister Margaret suffered emotionally and financially as despair. Harry never realized how he misunderstood his grandmother. Behind her genuine warmth, she correctly assessed Harry's weaknesses. Unlike the queen's careful nurturing of William as a future monarch, eyewitnesses recalled that she had been patronizing towards Harry. The younger brother was psychologically oppressed, admitted one senior palace official disliked by Harry. Over regular Sunday tea times in Windsor Castle, the Etonian school boy William had bonded with the queen. Familiar with the truism that Hannavarians could never get on with their elder son, the queen had a greater influence on William than Charles. Down to earth, insightful, indiscreet, amusing, and practical, the queen taught her grandson that the royals must be polite to everyone. Always under observation, the royals could only trust personal relationships after a long probationary period. Forge a tight circle of reliable friends, she advised, but expect times of loneliness. At the same time, she advised him to experience the normal world to see around corners. Her toutelage was aided by her private secretary regularly. Christopher, a former diplomat, ensured that William received government papers, witnessed the queen meeting foreign ambassadors in Buckingham Palace, and visited Commonwealth countries. While William was carefully steered by his grandmother to choose a suitable wife to create a winning team, Harry remained a victim of generations of poor parenting. Charles had inherited problems with fatherhood. Prince Philip had endured a torid childhood shipped between unwelcoming relations and marked by little contact with his own father, Prince Andrew of Greece, who had disappeared in 1937. In turn, Charles was himself an absent father who shied away from confrontations with his younger son, indulgently saying no rarely. Lurking in the background was always a suspicion that Charles was not Harry's father. Harry recalled Charles's quip, "Who knows if I'm even your real father?" A suggestion believed by some palace officials to be too close to the bone. Did Charles really say that? I mean, palace officials say it was too close to the bone. But are they saying that that is so hateful a thing to have been uttered that Charles wouldn't have said it? Or are they saying it's kind of surprising Charles would have said that? You know, it's in the sense that too bad he would have said something so cutting to his boy without really knowing the truth one way or the other. Maybe Charles did say that. Maybe he thought he was being funny. Was this like the time when Charles said >> in love >> and it's like this horrible moment where you see the light drain out of her eyes at this realization that he doesn't consider what they have all that special. And sometimes I think that he just says what is in his mind and what's on his heart emotionally sort of unable to imagine the way those words would fall on somebody else's ears. I don't think that he's an unempathetic person because I think we've seen lots of times when he's gone out of his way for other people or he has shown care and concern over somebody's trials and tribulations. But I think that sometimes he does say things that are shockingly unkind. I don't think he means to. I think he just says what crosses his mind without the ability to imagine how that would actually feel hearing it.
The limited bond between Charles and Harry was partly rooted in Diana's lack of education and her differing cultural interests. Blessed with a profound intuition and a strong personality, tough as nails, some would say, Diana refused to encourage her sons to share Charles's passion for music, architecture, civilization, religion, the environment, and much more. Even on those days spent together shooting, riding, and skiing, Harry and Charles shared little in common. Every parental attempt to treat the brothers as equals was undermined by William's destiny and the unreality of royal life. Diane had even described Harry as a needy thumb sucker sitting on her lap demanding attention. Commuting in chauffeur cars between Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, Andringham, Balmoral and his friend's country home, surrounded by bodyguards and obscuous courtiers, Harry always relied on others to do his chores. His shopping, cleaning, and even calling for his car. The man who never carried cash, never had a door key in his pocket, never traveled by tube, was oblivious to the real world. Undoubtedly, Harry was preoccupied with his parents' divorce. the walk at the age of 12 behind his mother's coffin and Charles relationship with Camila Parker Bowls as a reportedly disruptive pupil at Eaton. He achieved two poor A levels, a grade D in geography and with the secret help of his teacher, a B in art. I'm bottom of the class, one fellow Etonian lamented to Harry. That's all right for you, Harry replied. I'm bottom of the school. Some were sympathetic to Harry's predicament. He felt imprisoned by having to conform to court rules and public parades. Others scoffed about his extraordinary privileges, not least the dark side of his life known to many except apparently his father. Relying on his staff to supervise Harry, Charles allowed his teenage son to spend thousands of pounds on Krug and Greg Goose vodka in Bougie's Makiki and other London nightclubs and on drugs. Exposed by the tabloids when he was 17 for snorting cocaine, including in Club H, a basement at High Grove, Charles's country house, Harry told the palace to deny the truth. Yet the palace had refused to lie to protect him. At his expense, he fumed. They lied about him to protect William, the sacred heir. Fearing that he was a lifelong loser, it was clear Harry would prefer not to admit one truth. He was furious not to be the heir. being the spare had become intolerable. He was, in his words, the shadow, the support, the plan B, the backup, distraction, diversion, and if necessary, a spare part kidney perhaps. Convinced that William had even controlled his wedding, he could not imagine his father's turmoil in anticipation of being the king. Charles did nothing to alleviate these anxieties. Harry blamed his father for his misery. Charles had married Diane out of duty and had failed to live up to his responsibility to remain loyal to his mother and his children. Instead of understanding his father's burdens, unhappy school days, distant parents, and bowing to pressure of his first loveless marriage, Harry turned against his father, describing him as emotionally dead. Proof was Charles's failure to hug his son on that fateful August morning in Bmoral, when he sat on his bed to tell him that Diana was dead, and later, disregarding his two sons please, he married Camila Parker BS. I do think that it is the height of hypocrisy for Harry to want everyone to understand his plight, his depression at his mother's death, his loneliness, his feeling that he would never be able to amount to anything because he was a spare part kidney perhaps, but he has no ability to conceive that his father had his own personal struggles as a human. Now, I do think that Charles fell down on his duty in a lot of respects. I think that when it came to raising his kids, he chose the lot he had when he married Diana. I know there was pressure on him to marry her. I know he felt kind of backed up against it. He was getting older. He had to choose a wife. He had to have kids. And I understand that he loved Camila and would have rather had been married to her. But all along, I mean, he was Camila was married. He was cheating with her all along. He was neglecting the kids that he had. Um, there was a lot of moping around, a lot of like, I feel sad, so I get to. and Harry does the same thing. And yet I think that both of them are sort of like incapable of imagining the humanity in the other. I think both of them could critique the other. Harry could say, "Why weren't you more invested in the life you did have instead of always living in a fantasy?" And Charles could come back at Harry and say, "Why aren't you more invested in the life you have instead of living in a fantasy created by a Californian who doesn't even understand the atmosphere?" Both of them, I think, are very similar in some ways. I think Charles had the privilege of having a destiny mapped out for him. And if he had not, then I wonder if he would have been more like Harry, floundering and uncertain about what to do next. Although I doubt it because he had work and things to preoccupy his mind. He had hobbies, he had interests, and Harry had none of that. I think one of Harry's main problems was that he had nothing to do with his mind. And so it was very easy for Megan to come on in and just make a home in Harry's mind.
In 2009, the journalist Mark Hollingsworth wrote in the London Evening Standard that Harry had an uneasy relationship with his father because Prince Charles was an absentee father. Looo and his charity work continued Hollingsworth had become Harry's sanctuary, far away from the disapproving and detached gaze of his father. The Standards magazine editor received a formal protest from the palace. There's absolutely no truth in any of these assertions, wrote the communications director, Patty Hson. The claims made without any evidence are incorrect. No evidence. I think we can all see the way the wind blew. I don't think Charles was super invested in his kids. I don't think most of the royals are super invested in their kids. I think William and Catherine have diverged from that conception of sort of the distant parents of the future king. But I mean, up until this point, was any was any crown royal that interested in their kids? I don't think so. For Patty Hverson to be trotted out to be like, there's no truth in any of these. Well, I think there is some truth and it's kind of traditional to ignore your kids. So, I think it's going to be okay. I mean, yeah, he's absentee just like his mom was and their parents before them, you know, but at a certain point, Harry is responsible for himself as an adult. Maybe Charles was an absent father. Maybe he wasn't as invested as he could have been, you know, but I mean, when your kids are at boarding school, how invested can you be if the culture is to send your kid to a boarding school? I mean, are you supposed to show up to the boarding school every night and get in bed with them? You know what I'm saying? It's like all Charles really did was what everyone had done. And maybe you could fault him and say, "Well, you should have broken barriers." All right. Well, he didn't. But to say he was these claims made without evidence. We've got evidence, but it's okay. Just don't deny reality, I think, is what I'm trying to say. These these PR people who come out and deny reality, what even is that?
Four years later, in January 2013, Charles understood Harry's trauma better than others. The army had been Harry's life belt. Hugely popular, he'd flourished in Afghanistan as an officer amid real camaraderie. Hearing about his sudden evacuation after newspaper had revealed his presence, Charles had rushed from Highrove to meet his son's returning plane at Snowy Bryce Norton. Harry, he suspected, would struggle to establish a satisfying life as a civilian. Suffering post-traumatic stress injury, Harry was unraveling. As he later admitted, the first few bubbles started coming out and then it was chaos. My emotions were sprayed all over the walls everywhere. I started to go slightly off the rails and deal with it through drinking and drugs. Unfortunately, like most of us, the first time you consider therapy is when you're lying on the floor in a fetal position, probably wishing you had dealt with some of this stuff previously. Now, I don't really mean to mock I mean that's pretty bad if he has post-traumatic stress injury. But I do sometimes wonder like what did he experience in Afghanistan that would have caused that because I think from my understanding he wasn't was he in a lot of fighting? I don't think I remember that but maybe he was. Harry Savior he had told the journalist Brying Gordon was William. He kept saying this is not right. This is not normal. You need to talk to someone about this stuff. It's okay. Bless him. He was a huge support to me. With William's encouragement in 2016, the brothers founded Heads Together, a campaign to persuade people to feel no guilt about mental health problems. By then, Harry was also certain he had been cured. "I'm not a person with a disorder," he had said that year. In hindsight, Harry would complain that his future had been precarious. As the spare, he protested he had no money, no status, no decent home, and no job. Palace officials refused to create a separate court for Harry or negotiate an accommodation for him to fit in like his aunt Princess Anne or even his great aunt Margaret. Don't bother to compete against William, a senior palace official advised him. Frustrated, he found that his father ignored both his complaints and the danger signals until he met Megan. Harry accepted his fate. He always seemed so friendly, recalled one palace official, even as his role declined. The official was mistaken. While Harry assumed that he shared with his brother an unbreakable lifetime bond of misery over Diana's death, he bulked at the barriers erected after Williams marriage to Kate in 2011. After the Camidages were given more staff, bigger cars, and a bigger home, Harry felt himself as an outsider and a non-person within his own family. Convinced that he was being ostracized by the Camidgages, trifling incidents in Kensington Palace became magnified. Arguments about a parking space and disputes about a lack of natural sunlight into his home fired him up. And so did Megan. Consumed by the memory of Diana, Harry told William, "I feel as though she helped me find Mag." William was surprised. Well, now, Harold, I'm not so sure about that. I wouldn't say that. And that is where we end today. I've got to go a dentist appointment, so I got to scadaddle. But I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I I just find it endlessly fascinating the way Harry has blamed everybody else. Has no ability to conceive that he as an adult gets to decide a lot of things for himself. But he would much rather choose the lazy path of blaming everybody else but himself. And he found somebody who also likes to blame everybody else but herself. And together the two of them just do and come up with all kinds of story lines and then make decisions out of those false story lines. And as long as they do that, they there will be no success for Harry and Megan. Well, thank you so much for watching the second episode of this book, and I'll see you again for more tomorrow. Bye.