You have to understand, in the 48 hours after Prince Harry left the UK, the British media and various royal offices tried to push a wall-to-wall narrative about Harry’s visit, what it meant, what Harry really wants, and how his sibling is basically having a breakdown over all of it. A huge part of the narrative was “Harry is DESPERATE to come back, without his wife, and he wants nothing more than to be embraced by Britain again by any means necessary!” What ruined the deranger fantasy was the fact that Harry went to Ukraine and he got an even better reception there, and he looked like a roving international statesman. It was on his journey back from Ukraine where Harry spoke at length to the Guardian. The Guardian published their piece on Sunday, and Harry basically made the previous 48 hours of breathless royalist coverage sound childish and delusional. Go here to read this excellent Guardian piece. Some highlights:
In Ukraine, Harry has achieved cult-hero status. Ukrainians themselves have embraced the whole concept [of Invictus]. The men and women who have taken part in the biennial Invictus Games have become national heroes and front-page news. But these competitions only involve small numbers, and the need is vast. So Invictus has been devising programmes to help veterans all over the country get access to sports facilities. At a reception on Friday morning, the IGF team are guests at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, where they meet ministers and dozens of the recovering wounded. And it’s here that Harry’s popularity among Ukrainians becomes very clear. The injured want to talk to him, the mothers and fathers of the wounded and dead want to shake his hand, or hug him. He is cheered and clapped at every turn, as are his colleagues.
Harry is a boxer: He doesn’t like posing for staged photographs, and he doesn’t like cycling (“I have a bony ass”); he likes to box to relieve his frustration – “hitting the hell out of a bag”, he says, helps him to decompress. In private he is very informal, padding around in his socks on the train to and from Kyiv and making dad jokes. In public he has a confident voice and an easy charm with strangers, but on his own he is softly spoken and asks questions about people, and about politics. He has views.
Finding a purpose outside of military service: “I would say that I have been fortunate. The one thing that people miss when they hang up their uniform is purpose. Losing a sense of community and being part of a team, and of course the camaraderie and adrenaline. But at the heart of it is your job, your role is serving a purpose larger than yourself.” His work for Invictus, he says, has given him that after his military career. It “saved me”. Changing attitudes across society about disabled people is another core message. “Seeing people with prosthetics and life-changing injuries is going to be the norm in Ukraine for the coming decades. Nobody should feel embarrassed or ashamed about their disabilities. It’s about flipping from sympathy to admiration and respect.”
Laying a wreath at Maidan Square: “I wanted to find a spot to lay the wreath in peace away from everyone. My God it’s like a maze in there. I didn’t appreciate how far back it went. Honestly, it is one of the saddest things I have ever seen. But also one of the most beautiful.” The war, he suggests, could and should have been avoided. “It is all so unnecessary.”
A possible meeting Zelenskyy: After this visit, the prince disappears. His car heads off away from the convoy for about an hour and when he returns to the group, he is coy and tight-lipped. The suspicion is that he has gone to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but neither he nor the president wants to admit it. Zelenskyy is a champion of the Invictus Games and had made it known he wanted to meet the prince. The British government had made it known to Zelenskyy it would rather he did not. That was the chat in diplomatic circles, at least. The theory was that giving the rebel royal a platform might not be smart politics on a day that Britain’s new foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, was also in town. But only one Briton is making any headlines in Ukraine on Friday.His four days in the UK: “Yes, I have enjoyed the week,” says Harry. “I have always loved the UK and I always will love the UK. It’s been good to reconnect with the causes I am passionate about. I have been able to spend some time with people that I have known for so long. It is hard to do it from far away. It is only in certain elements of the press where you see this talk about me being down or saying I am not smiling. This comes from people who think they know what I am thinking and how I am feeling. They are wrong. I think parts of the British press want to believe that I am miserable, but I’m not. I am very happy with who I am and I like the life that I live.”
He hasn’t always been cheerful in the past four years: “I have certainly had to deal with some very stressful events over the last four years. There has been the uncertainty and stress of the litigation and finding out certain things that have really, really hurt.”
The difference between the public & the press: “I feel a lot of support from the British public. Even now, when I feel like I have been destroyed by certain members of the British press. It serves them to think that the British public feels the same way about me as they do. But I don’t feel that and I don’t see that. For as long as I have known, certain elements of the British press have tried to speak on behalf of the nation. I think they are out of touch with the nation on lots of things. They hope to bring the public with them, but … I think the British public can speak and think for themselves.”
The future: Would he like to spend more time in the UK? To bring his children one day, despite the issues over his security arrangements? “Yes I would. This week has definitely brought that closer.” Harry won’t talk about his father, but he seems to suggest he wants, and needs, to see his father more often. Over the coming year, he says, “the focus really has to be on my dad”.
Meghan’s advice: Harry mentions his wife, Meghan, only once by name, a reference to something she told him about how telling the truth “is the most efficient way to live”. “She said ‘just stick to the truth’. It is the thing I always fall back on. Always. And if you think like that, who would be stupid enough to lie? It takes up too much time and effort.”
He has no regrets about putting his story out there: “I know that [speaking out] annoys some people and it goes against the narrative. The book? It was a series of corrections to stories already out there. One point of view had been put out and it needed to be corrected. I don’t believe that I aired my dirty laundry in public. It was a difficult message, but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear.” Being called stubborn slightly rankles with him. “It’s not stubbornness, it is having principles.”
His press & familal battles: He does not ever expect to get positive coverage from some quarters – a ceasefire is, perhaps, the best he can hope for. “It is not about revenge, it is about accountability,” he says. Nor does he want to prolong any divisions with his family. But in life, he says, “you cannot have reconciliation before you have truth”.
His mother: He is told that Rudnieva thought part of the reason people liked him was because he is quite Ukrainian in his attitude to life: he does his own thing, in his own way. “You know who else did that?” says the prince. “My mum.”
“The suspicion is that he has gone to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but neither he nor the president wants to admit it. Zelenskyy is a champion of the Invictus Games and had made it known he wanted to meet the prince. The British government had made it known to Zelenskyy it would rather he did not.” Pathetic. It’s a reminder that the British government has reportedly been doing variations of this for years as well – trying to block Harry from meeting face-to-face with President Biden and other world leaders, trying to convince other countries to deny security to the Sussexes, throwing tantrums whenever Harry travels to other countries on behalf of Invictus. It should have been a bigger scandal, and the Starmer government should absolutely be called out on this too. As in, “why is the British government throwing its weight around when it comes to President Zelenskyy meeting the founder of Invictus?”
As for the rest of it… I love that Harry is all “no regrets, f–k the noise” in so many words. It’s important for him to make the distinction between the public and the press, and it’s amazing to suggest that the British tabloids are actually out-of-touch with the public mood. As for the “focus” on his dad in the coming year… I mean, that makes it sound like Charles doesn’t have much longer. I don’t know, y’all.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencap courtesy of The Times.
