Prince Harry ‘Hates’ Himself for Prioritizing His Royal Role Over Meghan Markle Amid Her Depression: ‘I Felt Angry and Ashamed’

15.12.2022 - 17:29 / usmagazine.com

Prince Harry candidly addressed Meghan Markle‘s depression — and revealed why he blamed himself in the aftermath.

During the second part of the couple’s Netflix docuseries, which started streaming on Thursday, December 15, Harry, 38, and Meghan, 41, detailed how the public scrutiny in the U.K. took a toll on her.

“I was devastated. I knew that she was struggling. We were both struggling. But I never thought that it would get to that stage,” the Duke of Sussex admitted. “And the fact that it got to that stage, I felt angry and ashamed.”

Harry said he regretted the way he initially reacted to his wife’s revelation. “I didn’t deal with it particularly well. I dealt with it as institutional Harry, as opposed to husband Harry,” he continued. “I had been trained to worry more about, ‘What are people gonna think if we don’t go to this event? We’re gonna be late.’ I hate myself for it. What she needed from me was so much more than I was able to give.”

Meghan, for her part, broke down the thought process that she was going through at the time, adding, “I was like, ‘All of this will stop if I’m not here.’ And that was the scariest thing about it. It was such clear thinking.”

The Duchess of Sussex “wanted to go somewhere to get help” but claimed she “wasn’t allowed” to seek treatment for her mental health, per the palace. According to her husband, the royal family didn’t want Meghan’s personal issues to be a public topic of discussion.

“They thought, ‘Why couldn’t she deal with it?’ As if to say, ‘Well, you know, everybody else has dealt with it, why can’t she deal with it?’ But this was different. It was really different,” he explained. “But actually, if you strip all that away and say, ‘OK fine, it was exactly the same,’ so do we still