SARAH VINE: Is this the REAL reason Harry’s as bleak as a wet weekend in Bolton?
‘Harry are you OK, are you OK, Harry?’ That was the question running through my mind (to the tune of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal) as I watched the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s non-royal royal tour unfold last week.
The Duchess was her usual opportunistic self, flogging the clothes off her own back via ‘exclusive edits’ on AI-powered fashion platform OneOff, and delighting her fans with a VIP appearance lasting a whole two hours that cost each of them a mere £1,700, reportedly earning her around £130,000.
Her dedication knows no bounds, especially when it comes to monetising her own misery (she’s the most trolled person on the planet, ‘man or woman’, dontcha know). No wonder she’s smiling all the way to the bank.
But the Prince? He did not seem happy, not at all. There is so much sadness and anger now etched on his once rather handsome face, now pinched into a permanent expression of peevishness, such a sense of rawness about everything he says or does.
Every speech he makes, every utterance that falls from his lips, seems like a cry for help. On life as a royal: ‘After my mum died… I was like, “I don’t want this job. I don’t want this role – wherever this is headed, I don’t like it. It killed my mum” ’; on his mental health struggles; his lack of self-confidence; the pressures of fatherhood.
The Prince did not seem happy at all, writes Sarah Vine. Every speech he makes, every utterance that falls from his lips, seems like a cry for help
Where is the joy, the fun, the enthusiasm for this new-found freedom of his? He’s as bleak as a wet weekend in Bolton
Where is the joy, the fun, the enthusiasm for this new-found freedom of his? He’s as bleak as a wet weekend in Bolton.
This concerns me, and I imagine it also worries his family greatly too. For someone who ‘fled’ his existence as a royal to start a new one in America, unencumbered by obligations and expectations, finally free to live his best life, he comes across as awfully stuck. His heart may be in California with his wife and kids but his head remains fixated on the past.
I’m no expert, but it seems to me that Harry is a classic case of someone who has tried to escape their trauma by running away, but just ended up bringing all his toxic baggage with him.
Whole suitcases of hurt and resentment, which he regularly unpacks in public, occasionally lobbing the contents at those he blames for his misfortunes.
Like a wounded animal, he lashes out: his father, his brother, his sister-in-law, the press – anyone who gets in his way or dares to question the wisdom of his actions or behaviour. Is he even aware of how toxic his actions can seem, or of the great harm they cause?
Or is his behaviour just that of a very angry, very spoilt, very sad little boy who, even at the age of 41 and a father himself, is still grieving the loss of his mummy?
Not that any of that is an excuse. We all have degrees of personal agony in our lives, but not all of us use it to destroy the lives of others, as Prince Harry has repeatedly done.
For all his work with veterans, he has not yet understood a fundamental truth about trauma, which is that if you weaponise it, it will eat you up from the inside out.
This is what we are seeing with Harry. A man consumed by his own demons, convinced that his charmed existence – which most people would give their right arm for – is in fact a living hell. A man who clings to his unhappiness as though his life depended on it, who returns to his misery repeatedly, reliving it, feeding on it, allowing it to cloud his otherwise clear Californian sky. He talks about it endlessly, references it in his speeches. It’s almost as though he finds comfort in the darkness, as though blanketed in his own pain he is too warm and cosy in its familiar embrace to do the hardest part – break free and become the version of himself he has always wanted to be.
Perhaps he is scared. Scared that if he lets go of the rage, there will be nothing left. Scared that without these psychological crutches, there will no longer be any excuse for failure. But unless he lets go, he will never know.
Harry needs to stop hiding behind his past. Stop scowling at his own navel and look up. Look around, look at his beautiful wife, his beautiful children, his beautiful house, his many, many riches – and see all the blessings and potential that lie ahead of him.
All he needs to do is show his misery the door.
