What did Prince Harry say about Camilla? Interview comments about Queen Consort and her marriage to Charles

Prince Harry said that he and Prince William urged Charles not to marry Camilla.
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The Duke of Sussex has branded the Queen Consort as “the villain” in an interview with US show CBS’s 60 Minutes.

Prince Harry launched into his fiercest criticism yet of his stepmother, saying Camilla’s willingness to forge relationships with the British press made her “dangerous” and there would be “bodies left in the street because of that”. The Duke wrote in his memoir Spare that Camilla “sacrificed me on her personal PR altar”.

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It comes after the duke spoke to ITV presenter Tom Bradby in a tell-all interview on Sunday (8 January) where he denied branding the royals racist as he accused his family of “getting into bed with the devil”. He told Bradby he loved his father and brother, but said “I don’t recognise them, as much as they probably don’t recognise me.”

What did Prince Harry say about Camilla’s marriage to Charles

Prince Harry told US interviewer Anderson Cooper that Camilla “needed to rehabilitate her image” because “she was a third person in the marriage.”

He said: “The need for her to rehabilitate her image…that made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. 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 writes in his memoir that he and Prince William begged the King not to marry Camilla, telling Cooper: “We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought it would do more harm than good.”

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However, in his UK interview with ITV on Sunday night, the duke denied that he had been “scathing” about the Queen Consort in his autobiography.

Camilla, Queen Consort and King Charles III attend the Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church (Getty Images)Camilla, Queen Consort and King Charles III attend the Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church (Getty Images)
Camilla, Queen Consort and King Charles III attend the Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church (Getty Images)

Presenter Bradby said: “I want to sort of just briefly talk about your stepmother and the press ‘cause you, you are pretty consistently scathing and suggest that you are…”

Harry replies “Scathing?…What, scathing towards?”

Bradby responds: “Well, as in you say that, ‘your interests were sacrificed on her PR altar’, to quote, and you seem to be specifically referencing that. Now her people might say, well, it’s not a crime to go to lunch with journalists.

Harry said: “Well, I think in the book is very clear what happened.”

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In an excerpt read from his memoir Harry says: “‘We support you’ we said, ‘We endorse Camilla’ we said. ‘Just please don’t marry her, just be together, Pa.’ He didn’t answer.

“But she answered. Straight away. Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game. A campaign aimed at marriage, and eventually the Crown, with Pa’s blessing we presumed.”

‘We haven’t spoken for quite a while’

Speaking about his relationship with his brother, the Prince of Wales, and his father, the King, Harry said he is currently “not texting” William, and that he has not spoken to his father for “quite a while”.

Asked how long it had been since he had spoken to Charles by Anderson Cooper, Prince Harry said: “We haven’t spoken for quite a while, no, not recently.”

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Questioned on what his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, would think of his fractured relationship with his brother, Harry said: “I think she [Princess Diana] would be sad that it is where it is now. I believe that she would want reconciliation. And I hope that’s what’s achievable.”

But speaking on 60 minutes with Anderson Cooper, Harry spoke about the royal family’s mistrust of his wife Meghan Markle – allegedly sparked by her being “American, an actress, divorced, black”. Before he jokes, “she must be a witch”.

Cooper put it to the duke that his family dynamic was like “Game of Thrones without dragons”, but Harry replied: “I don’t watch Game of Thrones but there’s definitely dragons – and that’s again the third party that is the British press.”

Harry went on to say he was “not invited” onboard a plane taking other members of the royal family to Balmoral Castle, ahead of the Queen’s death. In his Sunday night ITV interview, he criticised “family members” for a “really horrible reaction” on the day the Queen died, with leakings and briefings.

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He labelled royals “complicit” in the “pain and suffering” the Duchess of Sussex faced, and told ITV’s Bradby he was speaking out in his memoir because “silence only allows the abuser to abuse”.

Harry lambasted the British press throughout the sit-down interview on Sunday night, venting his frustration at the “conflict” he accused the media of creating, but insisted his family had a part in this.

He told Bradby: “Nothing of what I’ve done in this book or otherwise has ever been any intention to harm them or hurt them. The truth is something that I need to rely on, and after many, many years of lies being told about me and my family, there comes a point where, you know, again, going back to the relationship between certain members of the family and the tabloid press, those certain members have decided to get in the bed with the devil, right, to rehabilitate their image.”

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