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It’s been almost six years since Prince Harry stepped down as a working royal.
And based on his latest comments about that decision, he still has no regrets.
Harry and his wife Meghan Markle are currently touring Australia, and the Duke made some surprisingly candid comments about family, grief and duty on a recent stop.
“I thought, ‘I don’t want this job. I don’t want this position; wherever this is going, I don’t like it,'” Harry told a crowd at the InterEdge Summit during the third day of his tour.
“I was very against it and hid my head in the sand for years and years,” he continued (via Page six), adding:
“And also, what would my mother want me to do? And that really changed my own perspective.”
“In my experience, loss is disorienting at any age. The pain doesn’t go away because we ignore it.”
Harry went on to explain that the experience of mourning his mother changed him forever with the eyes of the world watching his every move.
“Experiencing that as a child while in a fish tank under constant surveillance, yes, it will have its challenges. And without a purpose, it can break you,” he said.
The Duke of Sussex added that he has felt “lost, betrayed or completely helpless” many times since then, but that his sense of purpose has remained with him.
This, of course, is not the first time Harry has spoken publicly about the pain he endured following his mother’s passing.
In 2017, Harry gave an interview with The Telegraph who was on the verge of suffering a “total collapse” years after Diana’s death.
“I can safely say that losing my mother at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all my emotions for the past 20 years, has had a pretty serious effect not only on my personal life but also on my work,” he said at the time.
As for stepping away from royal work, Harry has suggested in the past that the decision was made somewhat easier by the fact that, as the heir’s younger brother, he had no expectation of ascending to the throne.
“I wasn’t offended, I didn’t feel anything about it,” he wrote in his 2023 memoir.
“Every boy and girl, at least once, imagines themselves as a prince or princess. Therefore, spare or no spare, it wasn’t so bad to be one.”
Clearly, Harry has come a long way in the years since he left the UK. And to the chagrin of many of his harshest critics, he appears to still be confident he made the right decision.
