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It sounds like Prince Harry has no plans of returning as a working member of the royal family. In a teaser for his upcoming 60 Minutes interview, the Duke of Sussex was asked by Anderson Cooper, “Can you see a day when you would return as a full-time member of the royal family?” King Charles III’s son, 38, responded, “No.”
Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down as working members of the royal family in 2020. In February of 2021, Buckingham Palace released a statement revealing that the couple, who reside in California, had confirmed to Queen Elizabeth that they would not be returning as working members of the royal family.
“Following conversations with The Duke, The Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of The Royal Family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service,” the palace said at the time.
Harry’s interview with Anderson, airing Jan. 8, will be the Duke of Sussex’s first U.S. television interview to discuss his memoir Spare . The “remarkably personal and emotionally powerful story of Prince Harry” will be released on Jan. 10.
In a preview for the 60 Minutes episode, Cooper told Harry, “One of the criticisms that you’ve received is that, well, okay fine, you wanna move to California, you wanna step back from the institutional role, why be so public? You say you tried to do this privately,” to which Harry replied, “And every single time I’ve tried to do it privately, there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife. You know, the family motto is ‘Never complain, never explain,’ but it’s just a motto.”
The Duke claimed that “they will feed or have a conversation with the correspondent and that correspondent will literally be spoon-fed information and write the story, and at the bottom of it they will say that they’ve reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment, but the whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting. So when we’re being told for the last six years we can’t put a statement out to protect you, but you do it for other members of the family, there becomes a point when silence is betrayal.”
Prince Harry’s interview on 60 Minutes airs Sunday, Jan. 8, at 7:30 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT on the CBS Television Network.
