I WANTED OUT, CONFESSES HARRY THE RELUCTANT PRINCE: Prince Harry conside...

Prince Harry considered quitting role but stayed for Queen



Prince Harry has admitted that he once ‘wanted out’ of the Royal Family and considered turning his back on the privilege he was born into to live an ‘ordinary life’.

In an extraordinarily candid interview, the 32-year-old Prince opens up about his troubled 20s and says how, after leaving the Army, he ‘didn’t want to grow up’ and struggled to find a meaningful role for himself.

Speaking to journalist Angela Levin – who revealed last week that Harry believes ‘no one in the Royal Family wants to be King or Queen’ – the Prince gave an astonishing insight into how he once felt directionless, and sought an escape from the pomp and pageantry surrounding him.

‘I spent many years kicking my heels and I didn’t want to grow up,’ he admitted.

Several years of partying, drinking and heavy smoking followed – which he has previously described as ‘total chaos’ – and Harry admitted coming ‘very close’ to a breakdown several times.

And when he finally decided to be more constructive, he even questioned whether remaining a junior Royal would allow him to use his talents effectively – and considered life as a commoner instead.

‘I felt I wanted out but then decided to stay in and work out a role for myself,’ he said, making it clear he was primarily motivated by his loyalty to the Queen.

It was obvious his life in the ‘goldfish bowl’ had left its mark. He added: ‘We don’t want to be just a bunch of celebrities but instead use our role for good.’

Harry, who was just 12 when his mother Princess Diana died, admitted feeling most at home during his years in the Army.



He was devastated in 2007 when, after ten weeks in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, his position was leaked by a magazine and he had to be hastily withdrawn for security reasons.

‘I felt very resentful,’ he said. ‘Being in the Army was the best escape I’ve ever had. I felt as though I was really achieving something.

'I have a deep understanding of all sorts of people from different backgrounds and felt I was part of a team.’

Tellingly, he added that while in the Army, ‘I wasn’t a Prince, I was just Harry’.

But with professional help, recommended by his brother William, Harry found a way to reinvent himself and carve out a role which has won public respect and affection: promoting the cause of injured servicemen and women, and tackling mental health issues, among other things.

He said that he and William were ‘incredibly passionate with our charities and they have been chosen because they are on the path shown to me by our mother’.

But when asked whether his girlfriend Meghan Markle had in any way advised him on mental health issues, he replied: ‘Absolutely she did not.’

In a sure sign of his maturity, Harry showed he had given serious thought to the future of ‘The Firm’ in the 21st Century.

‘We want to make sure the Monarchy lasts and are passionate about what it stands for,’ he said. ‘But it can’t go on as it has done under the Queen. There will be changes and pressure to get them right.’

Perhaps surprisingly, he also claimed to be an avid viewer – along with millions of commoners – of The Crown, the hugely popular Netflix drama about his grandmother and the House of Windsor.

‘It’s great but I wish they’d stopped at the end of the first series,’ Harry said. ‘They absolutely must not move on to the younger generation.’



Writer who spent hours with Prince Harry and revealed his desire to quit The Firm says 'he's not a whinger - he's a wounded warrior'

By Angela Levin for The Mail on Sunday

There is a moment in the controversial stage play, King Charles III, when Prince Harry renounces his Royal life to become a commoner.

It proves to be a brief departure, and the fictional Harry soon resumes his proper role. Yet there is more than a grain of truth in the drama, which was adapted for TV this year.

Because Harry’s search for a role has been long and fraught, and there was indeed a period, however brief, when the young Prince did consider trying to make his mark outside the Royal Family– or ‘The Firm’ – as he told me frankly when we met: ‘There was a time when… I wanted out.’



Harry’s battle for a role was at the heart of my Newsweek interview with the Prince last week, when he made the seemingly unguarded suggestion that no one in the Royal Family would wish to accept the crown, given free choice.

Criticism rained down as he was accused of being a whinger, of failing to give due respect to the institution which has brought him so much privilege.

But I believe he was guilty of no more than thoughtfulness and honesty – about an emotional past that binds the younger Royals together.

After two meetings at Kensington Palace, and having accompanied the Prince to a series of engagements, I know that the true measure of Prince Harry lies in something else he told me. I suspect it goes to the heart of his brother William, too.