Prince Harry … let’s just tell it like it is, Prince Harry is dreamy.
He’s charming, attractive, good with kids and animals. He’s also an actual prince. What could be dreamier?
But as Harry reveals in a shockingly intimate interview with Newsweek, he actually doesn’t have much interest in being an actual prince, or in being a royal at all.
So is he really the dreamboat we always imagined him to be?
One particular quote from the interview has several people up in arms — a quote where Harry claimed that no one in the royal family is really all that into it.
“Is there any one of the royal family who wants to be king or queen?” he asks. “I don’t think so, but we will carry out our duties at the right time.”
The issue is that Harry and his family live in a literal palace and have access to all sorts of servants and all sorts of admiration from the public.
From the moment they were born, they were set aside as special, and they never had to deal with so many of the struggles that everyone else faces.
So to hear him sound so unappreciative of all he’s been given in life … well, it’s rubbing a lot of people the wrong way.
But as he reveals in the rest of the interview, his statement comes from a deep desire to just be a normal person.
And that’s understandable, isn’t it?
“My mother took a huge part in showing me an ordinary life,” he explains, “including taking me and my brother to see homeless people.”
“Thank goodness I’m not completely cut off from reality.”
He says that “People would be amazed by the ordinary life William and I live. I do my own shopping.”
Harry admits that sometimes he gets scared that he’ll get too much attention while shopping for groceries, but “I am determined to have a relatively normal life, and if I’m lucky enough to have children, they can have one too.”
“Even if I was king, I would do my own shopping.”
He says that it’s “a tricky balancing act,” being royal and still trying to live a normal life, because “We don’t want to dilute the magic.”
“The British public and the whole world need institutions like it.”
But while he thinks the monarchy is important, he’s also intent on “modernizing” it.
He explains that while, by the numbers, he and William are doing much less work than the Queen, it’s because they’re putting an emphasis on quality over quantity.
“We use our time wisely,” he claims. “We don’t want to turn up, shake hands but not get involved.”
For Harry, using his time wisely means focusing on the kind work that Princess Diana would have wanted him to be involved with.
It also means doing something the royal family has never done: raising awareness about mental health and the importance of getting treatment when needed.
He says that after his mother died, he “shut down” for almost 20 years, and he struggled with being in the position he was in.
But William convinced him to get counseling when he was 28, and now he’s “fired up and energized and love charity stuff, meeting people and making them laugh.”
“I sometimes still feel I am living in a goldfish bowl,” he reveals, “but now I manage it better.”
“I still have a naughty streak too, which I enjoy and is how I relate to those individuals who have got themselves into trouble.”
So it seems that even though he may not have a desire to be king, he’s still embracing his role in his own special way.
And really, what more could we ask for?
