Here are some photos – via Clarence House’s IG – of Prince Charles doing some events in Wales on Friday. He visited a supplier of PPE, he went to a food bank and community center called The Engine House and met with some little ballerinas and more. According to the Daily Mail, “The Prince of Wales carried on walking and did not respond when a BBC reporter asked him about the Duke of Sussex’s incendiary remarks on an American podcast.” Oh lord they are really doing the most to hype Prince Harry’s interview on the Armchair Expert. The British press downright *insists* that Harry was whining (he was not) and insulting his father (not really) and that Harry failed to acknowledge his privilege (he acknowledged it multiple times). The press desperately wants Prince Charles to say something on the record about how Harry is some huge disappointment or something. I’m not really sure Chaz feels that way? Especially given that Harry is following in Charles’ footsteps by noting that the Windsor family dynamics suck.
Prince Harry has been blasted for speaking out against his father Prince Charles’ parenting skills — but Charles also made it clear that growing up in the palace was no picnic. Harry stunned royal watchers Thursday when he said he was caught in a “cycle” of “pain and suffering” growing up as a member of the British royal family.
As one palace source told Page Six following Harry’s lengthy interview with Dax Shepard on his podcast “Armchair Expert,” “It’s so tiring —stop whining about how awful your privileged upbringing was … and stop using your title if you are so miserable about being royal.”
Another insider joked: “We really should start calling him Henry Wales.”
However, when Charles, the heir to the throne, hit rock bottom following his separation from Princess Diana in 1992, he spoke out to Jonathan Dimbleby for an authorized biography. The book painted a picture of a lonely little boy who barely saw his parents and was miserable after being forced to attend the same strict Scottish boarding school as his father, Prince Phillip.
Yeah… all of this complaining about what Harry said (or did not say) and people are just going to act like Charles hasn’t complained many times about his awful childhood with a largely absent mother, his grandmother acting as his surrogate mother, his cold and distant father and that awful boarding school? Chaz had a rotten childhood. So did Harry, just in a different way. And both men have every right to talk about it. Other royal commentators disagree. Robert Jobson threw a f–king tantrum about Harry’s interview:
Royal scribe Robert Jobson — whose latest book, “Prince Philip’s Century,” chronicles the life of the Duke of Edinburgh — was shocked that the royal renegade continued to take shots at the family so soon after the funeral.
“To start saying things within weeks of his grandfather’s funeral seems ungracious,” he told Page Six on Friday, adding, “I’m sure if he used his brain now and then … [he’d realize] it’s not helpful talking about his personal problems. He’s talking about his father, who’s just lost his own dad, going through his own traumas and mental health issues. Surely he should support Charles now more than ever and I don’t know why he’s done it.”
“He is very self-indulged,” he continued. “He doesn’t seem to care about anybody’s feelings but himself. His father has just lost his own father, his grandmother has just lost her husband, her confidant of over 70 years, so for me, it’s quite selfish.”
However, Jobson stressed that he feels sympathy for Harry and understands that mental health is a serious issue, but still thinks that Harry should be talking family grievances over with a therapist instead of airing them in public.
“Just because he’s selling a series on mental health with Oprah [Winfrey] doesn’t mean you have to trash your family,” he said. “I don’t really see what is gained.”
All of these commentators are really hoping that people don’t listen to the interview. They’re hoping that people just take their word for it, that Harry is self-indulgent and ungraciously bashing his father just seconds after Philip’s death. This right here: “…It’s not helpful talking about his personal problems…” Happy Mental Health Awareness Week. Harry and William are both trying to carve out space as mental health activists, and advocates who use their platforms to encourage people to seek help and support. But not the way Harry does it, obviously! Harry apparently has no right to speak about his own mental health, his own struggles, and the lessons he had to learn the hard way. Never! He is obviously terribly self-indulgent and he should just shut up and never speak about that, how dare he try to lead by example. As for the idea that Harry is attacking Charles… again, he really wasn’t? What is with these people?
Photos courtesy of Clarence House IG.
I’ve never bought into Charles’ suffer narrative. Didn’t his brothers attend the same school? It’s not like Philip sent him to a school he didn’t himself attend. Frankly, if you are going to be king, it would be useful for you to have lived austerity. To have had your rank equalized among both nobility and the poor kids who got in on scholarship. What good is a king who has only ever lived in a palace and attended Eton among over privileged peers? See how much deprogramming Harry had to do for himself. He said on Dax podcast that it was only in therapy he started to understand the extent of his privilege. Yeah, sounds like Charles’ was a spoilt little boy who had never had to learn how to relate with his agemates as EQUALS and had a self involved perspective.
Going by how he treated Diana, his sons and how Camilla is clearly in a nurturer role, I don’t think he ever learned how to set his own needs aside for others. But I suspect that the school at least humbled him and prevented him from developing a fully grandiose sense of self.
I do think that if you have a young child who is very sensitive and needs extra nurturing, then you have to be cognizant of the type of school environment in which you place him. Some kids will thrive in one of those “toughen up” schools, while other kids will be traumatized. Combine that with the apparent parenting styles of QEII and Philip towards Charles. QEII wasn’t much for nurturing, and Philip seemed almost embarassed that Charles was a bit soft. Taken all together, I can see why Charles is so messy and seems to need constant validation. He could do with a lot of time on a therapist’s couch.
I think that the school Charles attended was very big on sports, physical fitness, and competitiveness. These are things that Charles never excelled at. Phillip, on the other hand, did. That’s why Phillip had a successful experience there and Charles did not. Also, Charles was bullied alot at the school and I think it scarred him.
Well I think there’s an in between from Gordonstoun to Eton. I don’t think it was because he was treated equally to others, I think the school just wasn’t a good fit for him, not every school works for every child, but because it worked for Philip he insisted Charles attend, even though they were very different people.
This. I think they should have found a more appropriate/better fit school for Charles. I understand that Prince Philip wanted to toughen him up, but he refused to understand that Charles wasn’t like him at all. They could have found other ways to make him have the experience of toughening up and experiencing what plebes endure. But they couldn’t be bothered.
My own mother told me “you need to suffer like I did.” The implication was that’s what she wanted – and she definitely got it. I made sure my daughter wasn’t told that, or put through that. That was the mentality back then. My mother would be 98 if she were still alive. In my experience that was the prevailing mentality of that generation.
He was also brutally bullied there. Just straight up bullied. I saw a doc that included interview with former classmates. Apparently, they had certain privileges (going into town for long stretches, smoking, drinking at the local pub) revoked before he arrived. Privileges that – if Charles availed himself of the, – would’ve either risked his security or embarrassed the Royal family. The other students hated him for it. They made his life a living hell and were proud of it.
He wrote the Queen and told her a bit about it. Philip advised her to ignore his letters.
Whatever else Charles may or may not have exaggerated, he was telling the truth about how awful his time was at Gordonstoun.
Even amongst siblings, one can excel and thrive at a school while the other suffers and hates it even at the same school (even at the exact same time).
Eton may not have been the answer for Charles and it’s not a bad idea to learn and live life beyond your titles, but Gourdonstun for a child like Charles wasn’t a good idea.
This is so true. Siblings raised in the same way by the same people can have totally different feelings about their upbringing based on their personalities. It doesn’t even mean that it’s anyone’s fault. One hopes that a parent makes subtle adjustments in parenting to account for their child’s disposition but even the most well-intentioned parents fall short sometimes.
Anne’s kids both went to Gourdonstun and seemed to enjoy it. (Although, it was co-ed at the time, Anne was on the board, and they presumably chilled out a little bit on the unsanctioned torture.)
Charles has been pretty open about how much he hated it there, and I don’t blame him. It sounded miserable for anyone, much less a sensitive kid without many friends and zero emotional support from his parents.
I’ve always had the impression that Charles had a better relationship with Harry than William. It’s one thing to stay silent and not do anything about William abusing Harry and Meghan through the media but when he stepped down why turn against him.
It would’ve have been such a PR boost to hear Harry say oh this past year my father has been a huge support during the interview.
“I’ve always had the impression that Charles had a better relationship with Harry than William.”
That is what I have always thought too.
Harry had a better relationship with Charles than William until 2019 when William got jealous over all the positive media coverage Harry and Charles were getting for their appearances and together and with Meghan. Then the people who worked for Charles who have for over a decade feared William’s greater popularity in any direct confrontation with William sold Harry out for the opportunity to get PR photo ops of William embracing Charles.
Because ultimately the monarchy is most important to him (and Elizabeth), therefore he will always prioritize his heir over his spare. Family means nothing in the grand scheme of things to these people. Hopefully that toxic dynamic is something that Harry’s been able to fully realize and and free himself from in his ‘deprogramming’ from the cult. I’ve often felt that it took Meghan’s arrival for him to really see how messed up it is to be treated the way he’s been for his whole life: like an afterthought.
He constantly used his children as a shield and then gave William the A-Okay to use his brother in the same manner.
This man is an emotional bum.
He’s been using Harry as a shield since Harry was a child. Example #1: making Harry walk behind his mother’s casket so he wouldn’t get booed and #2: sending Harry to a rehab after Harry was caught smoking pot so that he would look like a “caring parent” (not to mention that William was up to the same shenanigans)
As far as the press is concerned there will never be a “right time” for Harry to speak. It’ll always be “just three years since his grandfather’s death” or “stealing attention from his brother’s major event handing a prize to a sports winner” or whatever.
Omg, THIS. 100% They just want Harry and Meghan to completely disappear and never seen or heard from again.
So one of the interesting things about this push from the BM about Harry “attacking” his father – is that it seems to be falling a little flat. It’s hard to criticize Harry for what he said about his father and then in the next paragraph be like “well, Charles did say XYZ about his upbringing.” I mean obviously they’re saying it lol but I think its just on its face hypocritical. You dont even have to be a hardcore royal watcher to see that. Anyone who has seen the Crown knows Charles had a lonely childhood.
Along with that – part of the reason it’s falling flat is because Charles just isn’t that beloved (so that’s why we’re seeing some pivoting to make this about Harry attacking the Queen). Had Harry said “my grandmother wasnt a good grandmother” large portions of the world would be in an uproar. Harry attacks Queen!!!! The beloved saintly eternal queen!!! HOW DARE HE!!!!
With Charles, it requires a lot more effort to get even a bit of that response.
It definitely makes me wonder what things will be like when Charles is king. You’re right, Betty is in the saint category and the second anyone criticizes her, it’s an uproar because she’s…the queen. But yeah, Charles doesn’t have the same cred that Liz has. That could potentially change a lot of dynamics, especially in the press.
To me, all of this just bonkers nothing the Royal Rats say or print makes any sense.
The only way it makes sense to me is to accept that there are about 50 missing pieces to a 100 piece puzzle that when solved will totally explain all that is going on Charles, William and Harry.
I also think these people have never had one moment of self awareness, which means they have all sorts of unexamined biases and complexes. I don’t even think they understand how racist they really are. They think being not racist means shaking hands with people who aren’t white. But these are people who worry about how dark skinned a member of the royal family might be, and see no problem with it.
Of course, a family that’s built on hierarchy and heritage by birthright is going to be racist. Their entire lives are the epitome of what racism is: privilege by birthright. But they can’t even ask the question: how does my hereditary privilege affect the way I see myself in relation to the society I live in? The only person who has ever asked that question is Harry, and look how they respond to him.
There’s also though the missing pieces of the information they seem desperate to hide about the RF: what’s really going on with William, what his possible issues are that they don’t want uncovered, what’s really going on with the Middletons, even what other members of the family think about all of this. Are they “stuck” because they are relying on the financial generosity of Charles and then William? Are they feeling dismay at how all of this is playing out, and how it might affect them?
JFC, these people just don’t get it.
Charles should be more sensitive ,i dont know how much The Crown used his real childhood but Prince Phillip was brutal in the way he went about toughening him up.
It just goes to show that the Palace and the press want Harry to be a mental health advocate on their terms which means don’t talk about what caused him to have mental health issues in the first place but tell people that they need to talk out their issues.
Harry’s relationship with Charles seems really complicated, which makes sense if you compare the behavior of the Royal family to that of an abuser. Charles can be both a victim of abuse and a perpetrator of it. He clearly wasn’t able to break the cycle the way Harry did, and it’s possible that some part of him recognizes (and even admires) what his son accomplished. That doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to reconcile with Harry. Charles’s life would have been much easier if Harry had just sucked it up and accepted the abuse.
Harry seemed pretty compassionate toward his father on the podcast—I think he recognizes how much the heir is put through.
Yeah, this is one thing Chuck should really not comment on.