Prince Harry threw shade at Camilla, the queen consort of the United Kingdom, during his interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday.
Harry called Camilla “dangerous” and reminded fans that his mother, the late Princess Diana, felt the same way about her. “[Camilla] was the villain. She was the third person in their marriage,” Harry said during the interview. The interview also included a reference to Harry’s memoir, in which he reportedly wrote that he felt he was being “sacrificed” on Camilla’s “personal P.R. altar.”
Harry told Cooper that both he and Prince William asked their father not to marry Camilla in the first place.
“We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person, that — surely that’s enough,” Harry told Cooper. Then-Prince Charles married Camilla in 2005, eight years after Diana’s death. The two had to be married in a civil ceremony because Camilla’s ex-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, was still alive.
Harry said he and William eventually accepted Camilla as his stepmother for the sake of his father. “We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her,” Harry said.
Harry was critical of Camilla’s intentions and said her focus was to “rehabilitate her image,” and not be seen as a homewrecker.
“That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press,” Harry said. “And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being queen consort, there was gonna be people, or bodies, left in the street because of that.” (RELATED: REPORT: Prince Harry Claims He Needs ‘Electric-Shock Therapy’ To Forget Meghan Markle’s ‘Suits’ Sex Scenes)
Harry further explained his perception of Camilla, and her apparent relationship with the press.
“If you are led to believe, as a member of the family, that being on the front page, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public, then that’s what you’re gonna do,” Harry said.
“I love every member of my family, despite the differences, so when I see her, we’re perfectly pleasant with each other,” Harry added. “She’s my stepmother. I don’t look at her as an evil stepmother. I see someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to improve her own reputation and her own image, for her own sake.”