From the 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview to the 2022 docuseries Harry and Meghan and even in his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry has not held back from talking about the damaging aspects of being in the public eye and in one of the most famous families in the world. Among Harry’s admissions is the fact that he took drugs as a teenager and didn’t always process his grief over his mother’s death in a healthy way.
While Harry now talks about the importance of therapy and dealing with trauma, as he mentioned at a Movember event in Australia this month, a former royal editor who used to be around the prince has said that his emotional outbursts over the years are probably down to one thing.
That is the fact that Harry wears his “heart on his sleeve”.
This seems to be a different approach to the one taken by his older estranged brother Prince William, who seems to be more able to separate emotion from moments when he is in the public eye.
While William has been open about his grief following his mother’s death over the years, he has always stayed composed and not revealed too much about his private life, which some may argue Harry has not been able to do.
Speaking to New magazine, Duncan Larcombe said: “He’s (Prince Harry) been quite open about his childhood being flawed and traumatic, and his personality is very much ‘ wear your heart on your sleeve’, which is maybe why he is the one – as opposed to William – who seems tortured by it and why he’s making these emotional outbursts.”
He openly admitted: “I knew that I had stuff from the past that I needed to deal with.
“For me, there’s an element of choosing therapy because you have something or you think there’s something that needs fixing.
“There’s also the other piece of therapy, which is preventative and getting ahead of it. You don’t have to wait until you’re lying on the kitchen floor in the foetal position.”
