Prince Harry once insisted that his brother and father were both “trapped” in the “toxic” life of the royal family, but he was happy that he got to leave.
Of course, Harry has since changed his tune, as Page Six confirmed Wednesday that he’s moving back to the UK with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two kids, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
During Harry’s famous interview with Oprah Winfrey alongside Markle back in 2021, he said he initially “didn’t see a way out” of royal life before fleeing his home country in 2020.
“I was trapped but I didn’t know I was trapped,” he said. “Trapped within the system like the rest of the family. My father [King Charles III] and my brother [Prince William] are trapped. They don’t get to leave and I have huge compassion for that.”
Asked bluntly by Winfrey if he was suggesting William also wanted “to leave the system,” Harry replied, “I don’t know — I can’t speak for him.”
Winfrey later asked why his father put up with such a “toxic environment,” to which Harry responded, “He’s had to make peace with it.”
Harry shared that watching his wife struggle with royal life made him rethink the way his family deals with things.
Here’s the latest on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s shocking move back to the U.K. after 6 years in the U.S.
“I went to a very dark place as well,” he recalled. “I wanted to be there for her. That’s just not a conversation that would be had. I guess I was ashamed of admitting it to them.”
He continued, “I don’t know whether they’ve had the same feelings or thoughts. I had no idea. It’s a very trapping environment that a lot of them have been stuck in. I didn’t have anyone to turn to.”
“You know we’ve got some very close friends that have been with us through this process, but for the family, they all had this mentality of ‘this is just how it is. You can’t change it. We’ve all been through it.’”
Harry, 41, and William, 44, have been experiencing tension since 2018, and their feud intensified after Harry’s multiple tell-all interviews and his 2022 Netflix doc “Harry & Meghan,” as well as his 2023 memoir, “Spare.”
The brothers’ current relationship remains “so broken,” an insider told People last month.
A second source said “there has been no movement, especially on William’s side. There is no contact.”
The Duke of Sussex, meanwhile, once said raising his children in the United States was a dream his late mother, Princess Diana, had for him.
“I feel as though it’s the life that my mom wanted for me,” he said at the 2024 New York Times DealBook Summit, of his 2020 move to Montecito, California, where he’s been raising his son and daughter with Markle.
“To be able to do the things I’m able to do with my kids that I undoubtedly wouldn’t be able to do in the UK, it’s huge,” he continued. “I’m hugely grateful for that.”
He said at the time that he planned to stay in the US indefinitely, adding, “I very much enjoy living here and bringing up my kids here.”
He also revealed earlier that year that he’d considered obtaining his US citizenship.
“The American citizenship is a thought that has crossed my mind but is certainly not something that is a high priority for me right now,” he said during an appearance on “Good Morning America.”
The family visited Princess Diana’s childhood home, Althorp, during their recent European getaway with their children last month.
Markle shared family photos of their visit to Diana’s ancestral estate via Instagram at the time, including pics of Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, wandering the fields of the property.
Harry’s mother is buried at Althorp on Oval Lake, a secluded island on the 15,0000-acre estate now owned by her brother, Charles Spencer.
Diana died in a horrific car accident in Paris in 1997.
The visit to Althorp came after Charles and Queen Camilla welcomed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their two children at Highgrove House, with the monarch seeing his grandchildren for the first time in four years.
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