Prince Harry faced accusations of ‘breathtaking arrogance’ following a 2022 television interview where he claimed he was ensuring Queen Elizabeth II was ‘protected’ and that she shared secrets with him that she told no one else.
From their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey to Harry’s memoir Spare, the Sussexes frequently opened up about how they felt they had been treated within the Firm, and what had ultimately driven them to walk away.
Even during interviews focused on entirely different subjects, such as their charitable endeavours, the conversation would invariably circle back to the Royal Family.
One of the most striking examples of this came in 2022, when Harry travelled to the Netherlands for the Invictus Games, held in The Hague.
The Duke of Sussex sat down with NBC US breakfast show Today to talk about his role in the tournament, yet the discussion swiftly veered back towards the Firm.
During the frank chat with presenter Hoda Kotb, Harry disclosed that on his way to the Netherlands, he and Meghan had made a brief stopover in the UK for a private tea with the late Queen Elizabeth.
Speaking during the interview just days afterwards, Harry declared that he felt a personal duty to ensure his beloved grandmother was ‘protected and got the right people around her’.
He added that it had been refreshing to meet her ‘in some element of privacy’, saying: ‘It was so nice to see her. She’s in great form. She’s always got a great sense of humour with me.’
In the wake of the remarkable interview and the Prince’s assertions about the late Queen, Harry was accused of ‘breathtaking arrogance’, with ‘no bounds to his self-delusion’.
Royal expert Tom Bower also noted in his book Revenge that Harry’s remarks made it appear that ‘King Charles, Princess Anne, Prince William and all of the Queen’s staff were inadequate for the task’.
