Prince Harry details his feelings about Camilla, the Queen Consort — and why the press once considered her "the villain"
Prince Harry's portrayal of his stepmother, Camilla, now the Queen Consort, is perhaps the most critical in his new book, "Spare." Camilla married then-Prince Charles in 2005, though the two had been romantically involved on and off for decades.
Princess Diana famously referred to Camilla the "third person" in her marriage, and Prince Harry has not forgotten it.
She was portrayed by the tabloids as "the villain," Harry told Anderson Cooper during their 60 Minutes interview. "She was the third person in their marriage. She needed to rehabilitate her image."
"You and your brother both directly asked your dad not to marry Camilla?" Cooper asked.
"Yes," Harry said. "We didn't think it was necessary. We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good, and if he was now with his person, that— surely that's enough. Why go that far when you don't necessarily need to? We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her. So, at the time, it was, 'OK.'"
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"You wrote that she started a campaign in the British press to pave the way for a marriage," Cooper said. "And you wrote, 'I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she'd be less dangerous if she was happy.' How was she dangerous?"
"Because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image," Harry said. "That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that."
Harry says, over the years, he was one of those bodies. He accuses Camilla and even his father, at times, of using him or William to get better tabloid coverage for themselves. Prince Harry writes, Camilla "sacrificed me on her personal P.R. altar."
"If you are led to believe, as a member of the family, that being on the front page, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public, then that's what you— that's what you're going to do," Harry said.
60 Minutes reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. Palace representatives demanded that before considering commenting we provide them with our report prior to it airing, which is something 60 Minutes does not do.