Prince Harry has said he fell into depression and felt “useless” soon after Megxit, adding that he now tries not to spend more than 10 days apart from Meghan and their children.
The Duke of Sussex claims that life within the Royal Family prevented him from properly processing the death of his mother, Princess Diana. He also said royal duties could provoke panic attacks.
Harry recalled that simply putting on a shirt and tie for official engagements often made him feel as if he were being strangled or suffocated.
“You would think I had the best help in the world. I’m a prince, for God’s sake, but I was still grieving and didn’t have any place to put those feelings,” he said, describing emotions he carried for “15 or 20 years”.
He said therapy eventually helped him confront that grief. In one striking moment, he sprayed himself with Diana’s perfume, triggering a rush of memories and emotions that had remained buried.
Speaking about grief on the American educational platform MasterClass, Harry said he had found happiness with Meghan but later “slipped into depression” after they stepped down as senior royals and left the UK.
“We moved to Canada to get some space away from everything and simply think,” he said.
“Within two or three days of leaving that stressful environment, I experienced an adrenaline crash unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
“It was as though I needed stress for my brain to function. I became useless around the house. I slipped into depression for about two weeks and felt like I couldn’t function without adrenaline.”
His candid discussion of mental health and PTSD came as Meghan returned to the London spotlight, wearing a £28,000 outfit for afternoon tea with Malala Yousafzai at Claridge’s. It was her first public appearance in the UK for several years.
Prince Harry has spoken about the mental health struggles he experienced after Megxit, as well as the lasting grief caused by his mother’s death
Meghan smiles and embraces Malala before saying goodbye outside Claridge’s yesterday, during the Duchess’s first public appearance in the UK for four years
The couple’s flight to North America was shown in their Netflix series. Harry has now recalled: “I became useless around the house. I slipped into depression for about two weeks and felt like I couldn’t function without adrenaline”
Six years later, the Sussexes are raising their two children, Archie and Lilibet, and have returned to the UK.
Harry said he follows a strict “10-day” rule as part of maintaining his happiness.
“The biggest factor for me is the energy, joy and happiness I get from being with my family, especially our children, and from being on the ground doing my work.
“The key to maintaining that balance is spending no more than 10 days away from my wife and kids.
“It’s about balancing my work and sense of purpose with being a dad and a husband.”
Harry also revealed that he did not cry for nearly 20 years after Diana’s death. He said he thinks about her “pretty much every night and then most mornings”.
A therapist advised him to seek out Diana’s perfume after he realised he could no longer remember the sound of her voice or laugh.
Harry said it had a remarkable effect on him and his grief.
‘Spraying my mother’s scent was almost like knocking certain bricks through so that I could see through and certain memories and experiences could start seeping through,’ he said.
‘Everything I do, everything I put my energy towards, I hope that my mother will be proud of,’ Harry said on the highy-personal episode entitled Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss.
‘Trying to continue and protect her legacy, what I didn’t realise was that the work I was drawn to was so similar to the work she was doing.’
In a conversation with neuroscientist Dr Mary-Frances O’Connor ahead of World Mental Health Day on Saturday, Harry said losing his mother at the age of 12 meant he eventually forgot the sound of Diana’s voice and laugh.
He added that after marrying Meghan and becoming a father, he often felt guilty about allowing himself to be happy.
Harry said a therapist encouraged him to track down his mother’s favourite perfume in an effort to unlock his grief. He claimed the scent brought back memories and emotions that had long been suppressed.
‘It was like being transported to another time,’ he said. ‘It unlocked everything that had been locked away.
‘Spraying my mother’s scent was almost like knocking bricks out of a wall so I could see through it, and memories and experiences could start seeping back.’
The interview comes weeks after the publication of his uncle’s memoir about Diana, which reignited debate about her legacy and included claims that angered the King.
Earl Spencer claimed in one angry phone call Charles told him Diana would soon be forgotten after she died in Paris in 1997.
Reflecting on his mother’s death, Harry said: ‘I didn’t cry when I was told my mum died, only at her burial, and then not again for nearly two decades.
‘I was convinced that was strength, but it wasn’t. It was a 12-year-old boy with no permission to fall apart and no roadmap for how to heal.
‘I’d spent so long emotionally numb because I felt disloyal and guilty at the possibility of being happy without her. I felt I had to stay sad and emotionally shut down to prove I missed her.’
Harry said therapy transformed his outlook.
‘The reality is that what I discovered was that she just wanted me to be happy.
‘That was a huge mental shift for me. It freed me and gave me a completely different outlook on life.’
Harry also said joining the Army gave him a sense of purpose.
‘For 15 or 20 years, when people asked, ‘Are you okay?’, my answer was always, ‘I’m fine.’ It was numbness. It was emotional shutdown.
‘Without realising it, adrenaline was driving me. It was the force that led me to join the military at 20. It was the perfect distraction.’
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He said he increasingly withdrew from social life during those years.
‘I withdrew from a lot of my friends. I was much more comfortable sitting at home,’ he said.
Harry has been in conversation with neuroscientist Dr Mary-Frances O’Connor
Harry poses in the trailer for the interview
Harry said that spraying himself with Diana’s perfume brought memories and emotions flooding back
Harry added that he struggled to find effective help at first.
‘Unfortunately, a number of general practitioners weren’t equipped to help me. It was a case of receiving advice or being offered a pill.
‘I was completely against taking medication. I followed the advice but it wasn’t making any difference, so I kept searching for something that would work.’
He described his deployment to Afghanistan as life-changing.
‘The things I saw and experienced appeared to trigger other traumas that had been stored within me,’ he said.
Harry said therapy eventually gave him the ‘permission to grieve’.
‘Sitting in a room with a complete stranger and having the confidence and trust to open myself up’ helped him begin the healing process, he claimed.
The Duke, who in his book Spare admitted taking a number of illegal drugs in his life, praised psychedelic-assisted therapy, a type of treatment that has split doctors.
Magic mushrooms, MDMA and ketamine are used to change the brain rather than treat symptoms of depression and PTSD with common anti-depressants.
He said: ‘To combine conventional therapy with modern day medicines breaks down those walls and those barriers to be able to open yourself up and go deeper than you would ever dare to go.
‘Psychedelic assisted therapy is no longer a fringe idea or thought. It’s really becoming, I think, mainstream.’
The Duchess of Sussex, 45, and the Nobel Peace laureate Malala, 29, were photographed leaving the luxury hotel together in Mayfair before sharing a warm hug goodbye outside the foyer yesterday afternoon.
Meghan was wearing a camel Tove Studio coat worth £1,695, a £630 cashmere sweater in wheat by LA-based label CO and Ralph Lauren’s £1,700 white satin Charmaine trousers.
She carried a black Chanel handbag worth around £7,000 and wore Yves Saint Laurent shoes priced at about £1,000. Around her neck was Logan Hollowell’s Lovers Duet Diamond and Emerald Chain necklace, valued at £16,200. Her entire outfit came to roughly £28,321.
The pair enjoyed a classic British afternoon tea yesterday with fellow diners saying they ate cucumber sandwiches and scones with jam and clotted cream, with the scones apparently being a favourite of Meghan’s.
Meghan and Malala first joined forces in October 2020 for a virtual discussion on the International Day of the Girl, when they spoke about girls’ education.
Their London meet-up is believed to have been Meghan’s first public appearance in the capital since Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in September 2022.
Months earlier Meghan and Prince Harry were met by some boos as they arrived at St Paul’s Cathedral for a service of thanksgiving to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
While the Duchess has transited through Heathrow on several occasions since then, she is understood to have avoided central London during the ongoing concerns about her security.
Malala, originally from Pakistan but now living in Birmingham, was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for speaking up about young female schooling and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 – the youngest ever recipient at 17 – before going to Oxford University.
Meghan’s focus over the past week has been on the latest As Ever launches but this latest outing suggests she may be preparing to return to philanthropic work, perhaps in the field of girls’ education, now that she is back in the UK.
The two friends hug as they part ways after enjoying afternoon tea
The pair were first linked in 2020 when they joined forces for a virtual discussion to mark International Day of the Girl
The Duchess and Malala look deep in conversation as they exit the restaurant after their meal
Meghan and Malala dined in Claridge’s world-famous Foyer and Reading Room, where afternoon tea costs £95 per person. Champagne is available for £30 more but Malala, a Muslim who does not drink alcohol, and Meghan appeared to stick to tea and mineral water.
Set in the hotel’s famed Art Deco interiors and accompanied by live piano music, it is one of Mayfair’s most exclusive and celebrated dining rooms.
Fellow diners discreetly took photographs of the pair as they chatted animatedly over their meal, according to a hotel insider. The women were polite but barely interacted with other attendees as they were surrounded by protection officers. No one knows yet what they were talking about.
The source said they were accompanied by security throughout the visit. Police vehicles were spotted outside Claridge’s during their meet-up, identifiable by their distinctive number plate lights.
The meeting comes amid Harry and Meghan’s ongoing battle to get taxpayer-funded police protection in Britain.
The couple previously mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge over Harry’s police security while he was visiting from the US. It is understood now that the committee overseeing royal and VIP security, known as Ravec, is to reconsider the level of police protection now the couple and their two children are full-time residents.
Meghan and Malala’s discussion in 2020 came during the Covid pandemic, with Harry also joining the virtual talk on barriers to education for young women.
Meghan said on the call: ‘When young girls have access to education, everyone wins, and everyone succeeds. It just opens the door for societal success at the highest level.
‘What I had realised very early on was that when women have a seat at the table, conversations in terms of policy change, conversations in terms of legislation and the dynamics of the community are all shifted.
‘And when you have to see how you get a woman to embrace her voice, you have to start with where she is a young girl.’
