One sentence proves Prince Harry still doesn’t get it

More than three years after he quit royal duties and with his family rift worse than ever before – it’s very clear Harry is still completely missing the point.

COMMENT

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t feel empathy for Meghan Markle when, just days before she was set to walk down the aisle in 2018, her beloved father was caught in an embarrassing paparazzi stunt.

Instead of staying firmly embedded in the throes of premarital bliss, and with the world’s eyes on her, Meghan was humiliated as it emerged that Thomas Markle Senior had been paid to stage a series of cringe-worthy pictures of himself preparing for the Royal Wedding.

In the months and years that followed, he gave countless public interviews, oscillating wildly between criticising his daughter and her husband, and begging them for a reconciliation.

Many watched his awkward TV displays unfold in disbelief: how could any reasonable person consider a paid public airing of their grievances as the way to heal a broken relationship? Unsurprisingly, they seemingly only worked to make the estrangement between Thomas and Meghan permanent.

More than four years on, and in a truly stunning twist of irony: Prince Harry has just Thomas Markle’d his own family.

Thomas Markle on Sunrise. Picture: Seven

Taking a leaf out of his father-in-law’s book. Picture: ITV

On Monday, the Duke of Sussex spoke out (again) about his ongoing rift with the Royal Family in an interview with British journalist and longtime friend, ITV’s Tom Bradby, claiming he was still hoping for a “reconciliation”.

Harry and Tom Bradby. Picture: Supplied

And in the strongest sign yet that he still hasn’t grasped his own hypocrisy, he dropped this absolute clanger when asked whether he thought his brother and father would read his book:

“I really hope they do, but I don’t think they will. And with regard to this interview, I don’t know if they’ll be watching this or not – but what I have to say to them, and what they have to say to me, will be in private and I hope it can stay that way.”

To recap: in a tell-all interview to promote his tell-all memoir exposing private family conversations, Harry made it clear he expected them to keep their private conversations with him … private.

Among the biggest revelations in Spare, due to be released on Wednesday in Australia, is arguably the concrete proof that Harry has been deeply unhappy within the “gilded cage” of his royal life for many years – well before Meghan turned up in 2016.

From what we’ve already read, it’s clear that his narrative, while clearly subjective, is one that details a great deal of pain and hurt and subsequent resentment for members of his family and “The Firm”.

The brothers’ relationship has never been worse. Picture: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

Only Harry and those directly involved know what actually happened behind closed doors, and it’s no one else’s right to invalidate any of his feelings about those experiences.

But after all this time, and after the“painful yet cathartic” experience of creating he and Meghan’s Netflix docu-series and his memoir, still now to this day: Harry appears incapable of self-reflection. He seemingly has no grasp of just how hypocritical it looks to be pocketing cheques in exchange for publicly calling for “accountability” and “reconciliation” from his family members, after shamelessly exposing their most vulnerable and emotional private moments.

Did Harry, who has railed against press intrusion his whole life, consider whether a grieving Charles, days after his own father’s death in April 2021, wanted his desperate plea for peace to his two sons revealed to the world?

Did he consider whether Kate wanted details of her emotions around her pregnancy and the birth of her third son shared?

Do you think he considered whether William wanted the world to know he had a circumcised penis?

The lack of discretion on behalf of the involuntary supporting cast of The Harry Show this week has indicated that perhaps he just didn’t care.

But after watching the Duke of Sussex, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, tell Tom Bradby that he deserved the right to the privacy that he’s refused to offer his own family, the answer is now obvious: he quite simply doesn’t get it.

And that speaks volumes to those in his inner circle that he turns to for advice these days.