UK’s Prince Harry: I want my father and brother back

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s Prince Harry said his troubled relationship with the royal family “never needed to be this way” and he wants to get his father King Charles and his brother “back”, in an excerpt from an interview with broadcaster ITV released on Monday.

“It never needed to be this way,” he said in the clip.

“They’ve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile,” he said. “I would like to get my father back; I would like to have my brother back.”

Harry and his wife Meghan, officially known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, stepped down from royal duties in March 2020, saying they wanted to forge new lives in the United States away from media harassment.

They have since criticised how they were treated as members of the royal family, including an accusation by Harry that his brother William, Prince of Wales, screamed at him during a meeting to discuss his future.

In a separate interview with CBS News in the United States, Harry said Buckingham Palace had refused to publicly support him and his wife, while at the same time the institution was briefing against them.

“When we’re being told for the last six years, ‘We can’t put a statement out to protect you,’ but you do it for other members of the family, there comes a point when silence is betrayal,” he told journalist Anderson Cooper.

Both interviews will be broadcast on Jan. 8, two days before publication of Harry’s autobiography titled “Spare”.

(Reporting by Paul SandleEditing by Mark Heinrich)