I wanted out in my twenties, says Harry

Prince Harry talks about his wild youth when he took drugs and how much of the pain of his upbringing was linked to the way his father was treated as a child.

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Prince Harry laugh during the Invictus Games Opening Ceremony in 2014 in London.

The Duke of Sussex first wanted to leave the royal family when he was in his early twenties, he told the US podcast Armchair Expert.

Asked by Monica Padman, one of the two hosts, if he felt “in a cage” while on royal duties, he said: “It’s the job right? Grin and bear it. Get on with it. I was in my early twenties and I was thinking, ‘I don’t want this job, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be doing this. Look what it did to my mum, how am I ever going to settle down and have a wife and family when I know it’s going to happen again?’

“I’ve seen behind the curtain, I’ve seen the business model and seen how this whole thing works and I don’t want to be part of this.

“And then once I started doing therapy it was like the bubble was burst. I plucked my head out of the sand and gave it a good shake off and I was like, ‘You’re in this position of privilege, stop complaining and stop thinking you want something different. Make this different, because you can’t get out. How are you going to do these things differently, how are you going to make your mum proud and use this platform to really effect change?’ Looking back, I realise that helping other people, helped me.”

Prince Charles with his sons in 1985.

Charles and Harry at Balmoral.

In the interview Harry spoke about his wild days when he was young, which included drinking and allegations of smoking cannabis. Asking the podcast’s co-host Dax Shepard about what led to his own substance abuse at high school, he said: “For you it was your upbringing and everything that happened to you - the trauma, pain and suffering.

“All of a sudden you find yourself doing a shitload of drugs and partying hard. Look how many other people do that as well. They wouldn’t necessarily have the awareness at the time. I certainly didn’t have the awareness when I was going wild.

“It’s like, ‘Why am I actually doing this?’ In the moment it’s like, Well why not? I’m in my twenties - it’s what you’re supposed to do.’”

However, it is Harry’s remarks about his upbringing that are likely to cause the greatest upset within the royal family.

Despite not wanting to “point the finger”, Harry said that much of the pain of his upbringing was linked to the way his father had been treated when he was young.

He said: “It’s hard to do but for me it comes down to awareness. I never saw it, I never knew about it, and then suddenly I started to piece it together and go, ‘OK, so this is where he went to school, this is what happened, I know this about his life. I also know that is connected to his parents so that means he’s treated me the way he was treated - so how can I change that for my own kids?’

Prince Charles presents Prince Harry with his flying badges in 2010.

Prince Charles and Harry at film premiere.

“And here I am, I moved my whole family to the US. That wasn’t the plan but sometimes you’ve got to make decisions and put your family first and put your mental health first.”

Shepard compared Harry’s life to The Truman Show, the 1998 film starring Jim Carrey as a man oblivious to the fact that his entire life is a television show. Harry responded: “Yep, yep, it’s a mix between The Truman Show and living in a zoo.”

Talking about his early attempts to keep his relationship with Meghan out of the public eye, he said: “The first time Meghan and I met up for her to come and stay with me, we met up in a supermarket in London, pretending as though we didn’t know each other, texting each other from the other ends of the aisle.

“There were people looking at me, giving me all of these weird looks, coming up to say hi or whatever, but there I am texting her whilst we’re shopping, asking if this is the right thing and she’s replying, ‘No, you want the parchment paper.’

“It was nice, with a baseball cap on, looking down at the floor, walking along the street and trying to stay incognito.

“So living here [Los Angeles] now, I can actually lift my head and I feel different, my shoulders have dropped, so have hers, you can walk around feeling a little bit more free. I can take Archie on the back of my bicycle, I would never have had the chance to do that.”

THE TIMES