PRINCE Charles was “knocked to the ground with several punches” after Prince Harry’s “seismic” comments during his chat with Oprah Winfrey, claims a royal expert.
The Duke of Sussex, 36, told the chat show host that there was a “lot of hurt” between him and his father and said Charles had stopped taking his calls.
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Speaking on Channel 5’s Charles and Harry: Father & Son Divided, airing on Saturday night, royal commentator Julie Montagu said: “The person who was really knocked to the ground in that interview with several punches was Prince Charles 100 per cent.
“The takeaway from that interview was that there is a real rift, there is real distance, there is real anger.”
Relationship psychologist Anjula Mutanda added: “You could see that it was difficult for Harry to speak about his relationship with his family, but at the same time he wanted to.
“He wanted to get a message through that he has struggled deeply with what has been going on and there were definite fractures in the relationship.
“These are seismic statements to make about one’s own family members, and I wonder from Charles’ point of view he would have felt very exposed by his son.”
Speaking in the explosive interview with Oprah, the 36-year-old said he had tried to raise his intentions of leaving the Royal Family.
He said his father, Prince Charles, stopped taking his phone calls for a period of time, saying: “When we were in Canada, I had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father, before he stopped taking my calls.”
He added: “By that point I took matters into my own hands. I need to do this for my family.
“I’ve got to do something for my own mental health, for my wife’s and for Archie.”
And he said he felt “really let down” by his father, saying: “He knows what pain feels like.
“Of course I will always love him but there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that.”
The Sussexes also made the bombshell claim during the Oprah chat that Archie was banned from being prince after unnamed royals questioned how ‘dark skinned’ he would be.
Harry has since criticised his father in public once again, this time blasting Prince Charles’ parenting skills.
Speaking on the podcast Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Harry said he desperately wants to “break the cycle” of “genetic pain and suffering” caused by Prince Charles’ parenting.
The Duke of Sussex, who is expecting a daughter with wife Meghan, vowed not to “pass on” the pain he had experienced to his children.
He said: “There is no blame. I don’t think we should be pointing the finger or blaming anybody.
“But certainly when it comes to parenting, if I’ve experienced some form of pain or suffering because of the pain or suffering that perhaps my father or my parents had suffered, I’m going to make sure I break that cycle so that I don’t pass it on, basically.
“It’s a lot of genetic pain and suffering that gets passed on anyway so we as parents should be doing the most we can to try and say ‘you know what, that happened to me, I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen to you’.”
Charles & Harry: Father & Son Divided, Channel 5, Saturday May 15, 9pm
Meghan also revealed she had struggled with suicidal thoughts during her time in the Royal Family.
And Meghan broke down as she revealed ‘I didn’t want to live anymore’.
