Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex

• 1. Introduction

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  Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, was born at 4:20 pm on the 15th of September 1984 at St Mary's Hospital in London. His grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, was then on the throne. His parents were Charles, who was Prince of Wales and is now King Charles III, and Diana, Princess of Wales. His full given name was Henry Charles Albert David. He is the younger son and today stands fifth in the line of succession to the British throne.

  He has spent decades in the public eye, and the record of those years is unusually detailed. It runs through classrooms, war zones, hospitals, courtrooms, studios and charity events on several continents. This documentary follows that record and asks a simple question. What does a prince do when the role he was born into and the life he wants begin to pull in different directions?

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• 2. A Childhood Under Watch

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  On the 21st of December, Robert Runcie, then the archbishop of Canterbury, christened the baby at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. Friends, family and the public came to call him Harry. His elder brother, William, chose Harold instead.

  The two boys were raised at Kensington Palace in London and at Highgrove House in Gloucestershire. Diana wanted them to see more of ordinary life than earlier royal children had. She took them to Walt Disney World and to McDonald's. She also took them to AIDS clinics and homeless shelters.

  Harry's first overseas tour came in 1985, when he visited Italy. He later travelled with his family to Canada in 1991 and again in 1998. His parents divorced in 1996. In the year after the divorce, Diana died in a car crash in Paris while the boys were staying with their father at Balmoral Castle. Charles told his sons the news himself.

  At the funeral, Harry was 12 years old. He walked behind the cortège from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey. Beside him walked his father, his brother, his grandfather Prince Philip, and his uncle Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer.

  Money and keepsakes followed. Diana left £12.9 million, and the brothers received the bulk of it on their 30th birthdays. By 2014 each share had grown to about £10 million. That year they also received her wedding dress, tiaras, jewellery, letters and paintings. They received the original lyrics and score of Candle in the Wind, written by Bernie Taupin and Elton John, as Elton John performed it at her funeral.

  In 2002, The Times reported on another source of money. The brothers would share £4.9 million from trusts set up by their great-grandmother, the Queen Mother, on their 21st birthdays, and £8 million more on their 40th. Harry was reported to be due the larger share, because William was expected to become king and receive other financial benefits.

  Eton College was a break with family habit. The Mountbatten-Windsors had traditionally chosen Gordonstoun, where his grandfather, father, two uncles and two cousins had studied. Harry instead followed his brother and the Spencer side of the family, since his maternal grandfather and uncle had both gone to Eton. Before that he attended Jane Mynors' nursery school, Wetherby School in London and Ludgrove School in Berkshire.

  Schooling came with a bargain. The royal family and the tabloid press agreed that he could study free from intrusion in return for occasional photograph opportunities. It became known as the pressure cooker agreement.

  In June 2003, Harry left Eton with two A-levels, a B in art and a D in geography. He had dropped history of art after AS level. A former teacher, Sarah Forsyth, called him a weak student and claimed that staff conspired to help him cheat. Eton and Harry both denied it. A tribunal made no ruling on the cheating claim. It did accept that he had received help preparing his A-level expressive project, which he needed to pass to reach Sandhurst.

  Other parts of school life suited him better. He joined the Combined Cadet Force, became a cadet officer in his final year and led the corps' annual parade at the Eton tattoo. He has been described as a top tier athlete, and he played competitive polo and rugby union.

  A gap year followed. In Australia he worked as a jackaroo on a cattle station and played in the Young England vs Young Australia Polo Test match. In Lesotho he worked with orphaned children and made a documentary, The Forgotten Kingdom: Prince Harry in Lesotho. He would return there in November 2015 as patron of Sentebale, to attend the opening of the Mamohato Children's Centre.

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• 3. Soldier Prince

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  On the 8th of May 2005, Harry entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he was known as Officer Cadet Wales. He had passed the Regular Commissions Board in September 2004, but a left knee injury delayed his entry by four months. He joined Alamein Company. In April 2006 he was commissioned as a cornet, the rank of second lieutenant, in the Blues and Royals, a regiment of the Household Cavalry. He became a lieutenant on the 13th of April 2008.

  In 2006, a public debate began over whether he should go to Iraq with his unit the following year. In April 2006 the Ministry of Defence said he would be shielded from the front line if his unit went to war. A spokeswoman said he was expected to "undertake the fullest range of deployments". She added that his "overt presence might attract additional attention" that could endanger him or those he commanded. Defence Secretary John Reid argued that Harry should be allowed to serve on the front line. Harry agreed. He said that if he were barred from the front line, he "wouldn't drag my sorry ass through Sandhurst".

  In October 2006, Harry finished the Troop Leaders' Course and rejoined his regiment in Windsor. There he led a troop of 11 soldiers and four Scimitar reconnaissance vehicles. On the 22nd of February 2007, the Ministry of Defence and Clarence House jointly announced that he would deploy to Iraq with his regiment. Harry supported the move, having said he would leave the army if told to stay safe while his regiment went to war.

  On the 30th of April 2007, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, said he had personally decided that Harry would go as a troop commander. The plan was to patrol Maysan Governorate, with deployment in May or June. By the 16th of May, Dannatt had reversed course. Several threats had already been made against Harry. As a high-value target, he could endanger the soldiers around him if anyone tried to kill or capture him. Clarence House made his disappointment public, though he said he would abide by the decision.

  In the summer of 2007, Harry trained as a joint terminal attack controller at RAF Leeming. In early June he was reported to be in Canada, training with Canadian and British soldiers at CFB Suffield near Medicine Hat, Alberta. The reason became clear in February 2008. The Ministry of Defence revealed that he had been secretly deployed to Helmand Province in Afghanistan for the previous ten weeks. Bild and New Idea had broken the media blackout, and he was withdrawn at once because the publicity endangered him and fellow soldiers.

  He flew home on a plane carrying servicemen injured by an IED, among them Ben McBean. Later reports said he had helped Gurkha troops repel a Taliban attack and had patrolled in hostile areas. His tour made him the first member of the royal family to serve in a war zone since his uncle Prince Andrew, who flew helicopters in the Falklands War. In May 2008, his aunt Princess Anne presented him with the Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan at Combermere Barracks.

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• 4. Apache Pilot

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  In October 2008, it was announced that Harry would follow his brother, father and uncle by learning to fly military helicopters. He trained at the Defence Helicopter Flying School at RAF Shawbury, where William joined him. In February 2009 he failed his pilot's theory test. On the 7th of May 2010, Prince Charles presented him with his flying wings at the Army Air Corps base at Middle Wallop. Harry received his Apache Flying Badge on the 14th of April 2011. Two days later it was announced that he had been promoted to captain.

  In June 2011, Clarence House said Harry would be available to deploy to Afghanistan as an Apache pilot. The final decision rested with senior commanders at the Ministry of Defence, principally the Chief of the Defence Staff. They would consult Harry, the Prince of Wales and the Queen.

  In October 2011, Harry moved to a United States military base in California to finish his helicopter gunship training. The final phase included live-fire exercises and environmental and judgment training at naval and air force facilities in California and Arizona. He was reported to have placed top of his class at the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, California. He also spent time in San Diego. In November 2011 he returned to Wattisham Airfield in Suffolk to complete his Apache training.

  On the 7th of September 2012, Harry arrived at Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan with 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment, Army Air Corps, a unit of 100 people. His role was co-pilot and gunner. Three days later, it was reported that the Taliban had threatened his life. On the 18th of September, he was moved to a safe location after a Taliban attack on the base killed two US marines. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said extra security arrangements had been made, but that Harry would face "the same risk as any other Apache pilot".

  Files later obtained on the incident quoted Major General Gregg A. Sturdevant. "The night of the attack, he slept through the entire thing," the general said. He added that the only special step had been to identify a safe house in case the base came under attack.

  On the 21st of January 2013, it was announced that Harry was returning from a 20-week deployment. On the 8th of July 2013, the Ministry of Defence said he had qualified as an Apache aircraft commander. He compared operating the helicopter's weapons systems in Afghanistan to playing video games.

  In his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry wrote that he flew six missions in which he killed 25 Taliban members. He said he had been trained to see them not as "people" but as "chess pieces" removed from the board. He added, "It's not a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed." The claims drew criticism from Taliban members, British politicians and military figures. In January 2023, Pen Farthing, a former Royal Marines commando who founded the Nowzad Dogs charity, was evacuated from Kabul to avoid possible reprisal attacks on former forces people.

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• 5. The Invictus Games

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  On the 6th of March 2014, Harry launched the Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style sporting event for injured servicemen and women. Weeks earlier, the Ministry of Defence had announced that his attachment to 3 Regiment Army Air Corps was over. He had become a staff officer in HQ London District, based at Horse Guards in central London, helping to coordinate projects and commemorative events involving the Army.

  The idea came from the Warrior Games in the United States. In an article for The Sunday Times, he explained that his Afghanistan experiences had inspired him to support injured personnel. After attending the Warrior Games, he wrote, he vowed to create his own event.

  The Games ran from the 10th to the 14th of September 2014. On the 29th of April, Harry met British hopefuls at Tedworth House in Wiltshire as selection began. On the 15th of May, at a ticket-sale launch at the BT Tower, he tweeted as president from the Games' official account. In an interview with BBC Radio 2's Chris Evans, aired on the 31st of July 2014, he called the Games "basically my full-time job at the moment, making sure that we pull this off."

  In January 2015, Harry began working with the Personal Recovery Unit of London District under the Ministry of Defence's Defence Recovery Capability scheme. His task was to make sure wounded personnel had proper recovery plans. The palace confirmed that the scheme had been set up with Help for Heroes and the Royal British Legion. Visits followed to the Battle Back Centre and Fisher House UK at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. In February and March he went to Phoenix House in Catterick Garrison and to Chavasse VC House at Merville Barracks in Colchester.

  On the 17th of March 2015, Kensington Palace announced that Harry would leave the armed forces in June. Before that came four weeks with the Australian Defence Force. On the 6th of April he reported to Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in Canberra. He then flew to Darwin to join the 1st Brigade, including a detachment with NORFORCE.

  In Perth, he trained with the Special Air Service Regiment, joining its selection course, a fitness test and live-fire shooting. He also completed an insertion exercise in a rigid-hull inflatable boat. In Sydney, he trained with the 2nd Commando Regiment, remotely detonating an improvised explosive device and rappelling from a building. He flew over the city as co-pilot of an Army Black Hawk helicopter. He also joined counter-terrorism training in Sydney Harbour with Royal Australian Navy clearance divers.

  The attachment ended on the 8th of May 2015, and on the 19th of June 2015 Harry resigned his short service commission. In 2021 he called his ten years in the army, 2005-2015, "the happiest times in my life". On the 19th of December 2017, he succeeded Prince Philip as Captain General Royal Marines. In May 2018 he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy, Major in the British Army and Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force.

  The Games stayed central to his work. In October 2018, he and Meghan travelled to Sydney for that year's Games. In February 2020, he recorded a new version of the song Unbroken with Jon Bon Jovi, with backing vocals from the Invictus Choir. It was released on the 27th of March 2020, and the proceeds went to the Invictus Games Foundation. In May 2024, the couple visited Nigeria to honour the Games' work.

  On the 18th of January 2020, Buckingham Palace announced an agreement for Harry to step back from royal duties, including official military appointments. In February 2021, the Palace confirmed that he would give up his post as Captain General Royal Marines and all other honorary military appointments. In January 2026, he said that the sacrifices of NATO troops in Afghanistan must be spoken about "truthfully and with respect". His remarks followed comments by US president Donald Trump, who claimed that allies had stayed "a little back".

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• 6. Mind and Memory

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  In 2017, on Bryony Gordon's podcast Mad World, Harry said he had sought counselling years after his mother's death, with his brother's support. He described struggling with aggression and with anxiety during royal engagements. He said he had been "very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions". Boxing became a way to manage stress and let out aggression. In other interviews he said he had used alcohol to cope alongside therapy and had taken experimental drugs recreationally, naming "psychedelics, Ayahuasca, psilocybin, mushrooms." He also said that what he experienced after his mother's death was "very much" post-traumatic stress disorder.

  In April 2019, it was announced that Harry was co-creating a mental health documentary series with Oprah Winfrey, first planned for Apple TV+. Titled The Me You Can't See, it was released on the 21st of May 2021. In it, he said he had undergone four years of therapy, encouraged by his future wife after they began dating. He described "panic attacks and severe anxiety" in his late 20s, and said the demands of official visits had eventually led to burnout. On the podcast Armchair Expert, he linked some of his difficulties to the parenting style of earlier generations and to "genetic pain and suffering" in his family. In his memoir he described himself as an agoraphobe. The next month, UCAS reported a rise in students declaring mental health issues on university applications, citing Harry's statements as one factor.

  He also built organisations around the subject. In 2016, he co-founded Heads Together with William and Catherine. In May 2019, he and Meghan, with William and Catherine, launched Shout, the UK's first 24/7 text messaging service for people in mental distress. In October 2019, he joined other royals in voicing a Public Health England announcement for the Every Mind Matters programme. In April 2020, he launched HeadFIT, a platform offering mental support to members of the armed forces. The Heads Together campaign, the Ministry of Defence and King's College London developed it together. In May 2021, he publicly backed Peak State, a mental fitness programme.

  Spare also describes earlier drug use. Harry wrote that he took cocaine at the age of 17 and smoked cannabis at Eton and in the gardens of Kensington Palace. He later told a court that he never smoked in his father's house. In 2002, it was reported that Harry, at Charles's urging, had visited a drug-rehabilitation unit to speak with recovering addicts. This followed news that he had smoked cannabis and drunk alcohol at Highgrove House and a local pub in the summer of 2001. The memoir also recounts taking magic mushrooms at a party at Courteney Cox's house in January 2016.

  That history had a legal afterlife in the United States. In March 2023, the Heritage Foundation sent a dossier on his past drug use to government bodies, asking whether he had disclosed it on his visa application. The next month it sued the Department of Homeland Security for his immigration records. The case closed in September 2024 after two sealed orders and a sealed memorandum opinion. Judge Carl Nichols ordered redacted documents released by the 18th of March 2025. They ran to 82 pages across seven exhibits, heavily redacted and without the application itself, so it stayed unclear whether Harry had disclosed his drug use. His representatives said he had been "truthful". In February 2025, Trump told the New York Post he would not deport Harry. "I'll leave him alone," he said.

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• 7. Leaving the Royal Role

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  In mid-2016, Harry began a relationship with the American actress Meghan Markle. The couple say they first connected through Instagram, though they have also described a blind date arranged by a mutual friend in July 2016. On the 8th of November, eight days after the press made the relationship public, Harry had his communications secretary issue a statement. It voiced concern about false and demeaning comments about his girlfriend from mainstream media and internet trolls.

  In September 2017, they made their first public appearance together at the Invictus Games in Toronto. Charles announced the engagement on the 27th of November 2017. Commentators generally welcomed the prospect of a mixed-race member of the royal family, particularly in Commonwealth countries with populations of blended or native ancestry. They married at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on the 19th of May 2018. That morning, Queen Elizabeth II made Harry Duke of Sussex, and Meghan became Duchess of Sussex later that day.

  In the 2021 interview Oprah with Meghan and Harry, the couple said they had privately exchanged vows in their garden three days before the ceremony, with the Archbishop of Canterbury present. That exchange was not an official or legally recognised marriage.

  The couple first lived at Nottingham Cottage, within the grounds of Kensington Palace. In May 2018, they were reported to have signed a two-year lease on a house on the Great Tew Estate in the Cotswolds. They gave it up after a paparazzi agency published photographs of the house and its interior. They then moved to Frogmore Cottage in the Home Park of Windsor Castle, which the Queen had recently given them. The Crown Estate refurbished it for £2.4 million from the Sovereign Grant, and Harry later reimbursed costs beyond restoration and ordinary maintenance. Their son Archie was born on the 6th of May 2019.

  In January 2020, the couple announced they would step back as senior members of the royal family and divide their time between the United Kingdom and North America. A Palace statement said they would become financially independent and stop representing the Queen. At that point, 95% of their income came from the £2.3 million a year that Charles gave them from the Duchy of Cornwall. They kept their HRH styles but were not allowed to use them. A twelve-month review was set to end in March 2021.

  Harry's last solo engagement as a senior royal came in March 2020, at the opening of the Silverstone Experience with racing driver Lewis Hamilton. Their last engagement together was the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey on the 9th of March 2020. They officially stepped down on the 31st of March, the day their office closed. The Daily Telegraph estimated his personal wealth at £30 million in 2020.

  After several months in Canada and the US, the couple bought a house in June 2020 on the former Riven Rock estate in Montecito, California. The following month, Meghan had a miscarriage. Their daughter Lilibet was born on the 4th of June 2021. In April 2021, Harry returned to the UK for the funeral of Prince Philip, while Meghan stayed away because of her pregnancy. In September 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle while the couple were in London preparing for a charity event, and they stayed for her funeral.

  Security became a fight of its own. After a petition from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canada said RCMP protection would end after March 2020. A similar petition circulated in the UK. By January 2022, it was reported that Harry had been in a legal fight since September 2021 over the Home Office's refusal to let him pay for police protection. In May 2023, he lost his challenge, which meant he could not make private payments for it. The fight had cost £502,236, of which the state covered £492,000 and Harry £10,000.

  In February 2024, the High Court ruled against Harry in his case against the Home Office and found no unlawfulness in how the decision on his security was made. The judge held him liable for 90% of the costs, though his lawyers had argued for no more than 50%. He apologised to the court after it emerged that he had emailed information to a partner of Schillings and to Johnny Mercer. The Court of Appeal gave him permission to challenge the ruling in May 2024, and three senior judges rejected his appeal in May 2025. In December 2025, it was announced that the committee known as RAVEC would reassess his threat level for the first time since April 2019, following a private letter he sent to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

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• 8. Books, Business and Causes

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  In September 2020, the Sussexes signed a five-year private commercial deal with Netflix. Harry & Meghan, a docuseries directed by Liz Garbus, premiered on the 8th of December 2022 to mixed reviews. A polo docuseries followed in December 2024 and was a critical and commercial disappointment. In August 2025, their company Archewell Productions renewed with Netflix under a multi-year first-look deal covering documentary and scripted projects.

  The Spotify deal, signed in December 2020 through Archewell Audio, went less well. In June 2023, Spotify said it would not proceed, and it cancelled Archetypes after a single season of 12 episodes. Archewell Inc., based in Beverly Hills, holds both the commercial and the charitable ventures. According to Delaware filings, the couple incorporated 11 companies and a trust from early 2020, some holding the rights to their books and the foundation's logos.

  In March 2021, the start-up BetterUp, which connects people with coaches or counsellors, named Harry its first chief impact officer. In an interview with Fast Company, he said the Great Resignation should be celebrated, and critics said the remark came from a position of privilege. In April 2022, coaches at the company criticised new metrics and the opacity of his role. In the same month he joined the Aspen Institute's Commission on Information Disorder, whose six-month study produced a report with 15 recommendations in November 2021.

  In July 2021, it was announced that Harry would publish a memoir with Penguin Random House, reportedly for an advance of at least $20 million. The novelist J. R. Moehringer ghostwrote Spare, reportedly the first book in a four-book deal. It was published on the 10th of January 2023 in 16 languages. With 400,000 confirmed sales in all formats on its first day, it became the UK's fastest-selling non-fiction book. Harry pledged $1.5 million of the proceeds to Sentebale and £300,000 to WellChild.

  His charity work began long before the break. In 2007, he and William organised the Concert for Diana. In October 2008, the brothers rode the 1,000-mile, eight-day Enduro Africa motorbike trip across South Africa to raise money for Sentebale, UNICEF and the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. In December 2013, he joined Walking With The Wounded on a 200-mile expedition to the South Pole with twelve injured servicemen and women from the UK, the US and the Commonwealth.

  On the 14th of July 2016, he took an HIV test live on the royal family's Facebook page. In December 2017, he guest edited BBC Radio 4's Today programme and interviewed his father and former US president Barack Obama. That same month he became president of the conservation group African Parks. In Malawi he helped carry out one of the largest elephant translocations in history, moving 500 elephants from Liwonde and Majete National Parks to Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve. Reports in 2022 and 2024 accused rangers managed by African Parks of abusing members of the indigenous Baka community.

  Like his mother, Harry worked with the HALO Trust, which clears landmines left by war. In September 2019, he walked through a de-mining site in Angola, a country his mother had visited 22 years earlier. That month he also launched Travalyst in the Netherlands, an initiative for sustainable travel with partners including Tripadvisor, Booking.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner and Visa. In September 2025, he said he had personally donated £1.1 million to BBC Children in Need in December 2024, to support grassroots groups in Nottingham working with young people affected by violence.

  In April 2026, Harry made another visit to Kyiv and spoke at the Kyiv Security Forum. He urged the United States to take a stronger role in supporting Ukraine. He told Russian President Vladimir Putin that "there is still a moment" to stop the war. Trump answered, "I know one thing, Prince Harry is not speaking for the UK, that's for sure."

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