Prince Harry’s ‘Good Morning America’ interview team received a request from Buckingham Palace lawyers for an immediate copy of the sit-down while it was being aired.
They got in touch asking for a complete transcript of the Duke of Sussex’s chat with host Michael Strahan so they could consider his claims “in context”, GMA said in a statement, but the show refused the demand as it is not “policy”.
The show added on Monday (09.01.23): “We received a response from the law firm representing Buckingham Palace this morning, while we were on the air, saying that the Palace needed to ‘consider exactly what is said in the interview, in the context in which it appears’ and asked that we supply them immediately with a copy of the entire interview, which we do not do as a news organisation, as a matter of our policy.”
Among Harry’s claims on the show was that he has “huge compassion” for Queen Consort Camilla, despite referring to her as “dangerous” and a “villain”.
The 38-year-old duke shared his sympathy for his father King Charles’ wife after he branded her an “evil stepmother” in his memoir ‘Spare’ and told Anderson Cooper on ‘60 Minutes’ Sunday (08.01.23) she was portrayed by the tabloid Press as “the villain”.
He told GMA host Michael when he asked Harry what Camilla “had done” to spark he and his brother Prince William to beg Charles not to marry her that he had empathy with her as the “third person” in his father’s marriage to his late mum Princess Diana, and insisted he “doesn’t look at her as an evil stepmother”.
He added: “I have a huge amount of compassion for her, you know, being the third person within my parents’ marriage.”
But he admitted he had not spoken to Camilla for a “long time” and said he “loves every member of his family”.
Harry also said he and Camilla are “perfectly pleasant” when they meet.
Despite his claims, the duke repeated on GMA claims she had “traded” stories with the media to help “rehabilitate” her image after her affair with Charles while he was married to Diana was exposed.
He added she “has done everything she can” to “improve” her image “for her own sake”.
Harry said: “She had a reputation, or image, to rehabilitate, and whatever conversations, whatever deals or trading was made right at the beginning, she was led to believe that would be the best way of doing it.”
But he insisted: “She’s my stepmother. I don’t look at her as an evil stepmother. “I see her as someone who married into this institution (the royal family) and has done everything that she can to, you know, improve her own reputation and her own image. For her own sake.”
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