Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle / AP File
LONDON
Prince Harry revealed that he always felt “slightly different” from the rest of the British royal family and that smoking marijuana helped him cope with depression, during a lengthy conversation with a trauma specialist.
Harry, 38, explained to Dr. Gabor Mate that having grown up in a “broken family”, he now tries to raise his children Archie and Lilibet in a way that does not transmit his “traumas” to them.
The conversation occurred after the publication in January of his controversial memoir “Spare” (“In the shadow, in Spanish) in which he narrates an adolescence marked by drugs and alcohol and details the deterioration of relations with his father , King Carlos III, and his brother Guillermo.
“Throughout my entire life, from my youth, I felt slightly different from the rest of my family,” Harry told Mate, according to numerous media outlets that reported this interview broadcast live on Saturday.
“I felt strange” in this environment “and I know my mother felt the same way,” she said, referring to Princess Diana.
According to him, his wife Meghan Markle, “an exceptional being” who came from “a different world”, “saved” him and “helped him get ahead”.
Throughout the interview, Dr. Mate, author of several books on trauma and dependency, stated that Harry suffers from attention deficit disorder.
Studying the life of the prince, who lost his mother at the age of 12 and later served with the British army in Afghanistan, the doctor said he suffered “a lot of trauma”.
Harry, installed in California after leaving the United Kingdom and the royal family at the beginning of 2020, explains in his memoirs that he used cannabis and cocaine in his adolescence.
Together with Dr. Mate, he explained that cocaine “did nothing good” for him, but that marijuana was “different.” “That really helped me,” he said.
The controversy caused by the publication of Prince Harry’s memoirs has further alienated him from the royal family to the point that it is unknown if he and Meghan will attend Charles’s coronation scheduled for May, to which they were officially invited, according to reports. Buckingham sources.
Meanwhile, some British media such as the Sunday Times speculate that Harry could meet with the rest of the royal family before his father’s coronation in May, to calm the tension after the publication of his explosive memoirs. “All parties will have to be flexible. But it is possible, it is repairable”, estimated a source close to the king and Harry quoted by the Sunday newspaper.
The newspaper mentioned the possibility of a meeting between the prince, his father Carlos and his brother Guillermo before the coronation scheduled for May 6.
In the best-selling book, Harry spares no criticism of Guillermo, calling him his “archenemy.” Officially, Buckingham Palace has been silent since the book’s release.
The source quoted by the Sunday Times maintained that this family crisis “must be resolved between now and April, because the king needs an expeditious route before the coronation.”
According to a recent survey carried out by YouGov, Harry and Meghan are even more unpopular than Prince Andrew, brother of Carlos III and separated from the monarchy after being involved in a sex scandal.
