Tag: Oprah

  • Prince Harry teams up with Oprah for series on mental health

    Britain’s Prince Harry and US chat show queen Oprah Winfrey will premiere their television documentary series on mental health issues later this month, with singer Lady Gaga and actress Glenn Close among those contributing.

    The Me You Can’t See series, co-created and produced by Harry and Winfrey, will feature stories from high-profile guests and others across the world about mental health and emotional well-being issues, Apple TV+, the streaming service which will air the programmes from May 21, said on Monday.

    Winfrey said the series aimed to spark a global conversation, and replace the shame surrounding mental health with wisdom and compassion. Among those participating will also be basketball players DeMar DeRozan from the San Antonio Spurs and Langston Galloway from the Phoenix Suns, Apple said.

    “The majority of us carry some form of unresolved trauma, loss, or grief, which feels – and is – very personal,” Harry said in a statement.

    “The last year has shown us that we are all in this together, and my hope is that this series will show there is power in vulnerability, connection in empathy, and strength in honesty.”

    The prince, the sixth-in-line to the throne, has publicly spoken of his own mental health battles and dealing with the grief of the death of his mother Princess Diana who was killed in a car crash in Paris in 1997 when he was just 12.

    In March, he was named first chief impact officer of BetterUp Inc, a service that provides employee coaching and mental health assistance.

    The TV series is one of the first ventures by Harry since he and his wife Meghan stepped down from official royal duties and moved to California to forge new independent careers. The couple have also signed deals to deliver programming for Netflix and to produce and host podcasts for Spotify.

    It also comes after the couple’s explosive TV interview with Winfrey in March, which included Meghan accusing one unnamed royal of making a racist comment about their son Archie before he was born and plunged the monarchy into its biggest crisis in decades.

  • Harry has ‘unproductive’ conversation with Charles, William after bitter TV interview

    Harry has ‘unproductive’ conversation with Charles, William after bitter TV interview

    Prince Harry has spoken to his father and brother after he and his wife Meghan Markle raised allegations of racism in the royal family during an explosive TV interview, a friend said Tuesday.

    In the interview, Harry said that his father Prince Charles had cut him off financially and at one point stopped taking his calls, and also described his damaged relationship with Prince William.

    The British monarchy has been rocked by the couple’s allegations that an unnamed royal asked how dark their child’s skin would be before he was born.

    “I did actually call them to see how they were feeling, and it’s true Harry has talked to his brother and he has talked to his father too,” Gayle King, a US television presenter and friend of the couple, said on CBS.

    “The word I was given was that those conversations were not productive, but they are glad they have at least started a conversation.”

    King said the couple were “frustrated” that alleged racism in the royal family had dominated the news agenda since the interview was broadcast on March 7.

    “All they wanted all along was for the royals to intervene and tell the press to stop with the unfair, inaccurate, false stories that definitely have a racial slant,” King said, adding that no one had spoken to Meghan as yet.

    She added that Harry and Meghan wanted “healing” in the family, but that Meghan had “documents to back up everything” she had said in the interview with Oprah Winfrey.

    As for what Meghan and Harry hope will happen in the future, King explained, “The family has to acknowledge that there are issues, and right now, no one is acknowledging, ‘Houston, we have a problem here.’ That’s really all they want. They want a conversation.”

    The allegations, which the royal family said would be investigated, have plunged the monarchy into its biggest crisis since the death of William and Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, in 1997.

    Meghan, a former actress, told Winfrey she was “naively” unprepared for life as a royal and had contemplated suicide while pregnant with their first child. On the other hand, Prince Harry said that he felt let down by his father Prince Charles and that his late mother Diana would have been angry and upset at the way the British royal family had treated his wife Meghan.

    “My family literally cut me off financially,” Harry had said. “But I’ve got what my mum left me and without that we would not have been able to do this.”

    Meanwhile, William while responding to the interview had said: “We’re very much not a racist family,” while Buckingham Palace, in a statement, said that they will address the couple’s grievances privately.