Prince Harry is opening up about his decision to move back to the U.K. six years after he and wife Meghan Markle left his home country for the U.S.
“I think that certainly, our attitude has changed,” Harry, 42, told GQ in an interview published on Tuesday, October 20. “I think once you’ve been through it, once you’ve been able to talk about it and raise awareness to it, then people see it for what it is. It makes the environment slightly easier. It’s not going to necessarily stop the behavior, but I think the behavior might — my hope [is] that it will — change.”
Harry and Meghan, 45, stepped down as senior royals in 2020 and moved to Montecito, California, with their son, Prince Archie, 7. The couple later welcomed their daughter, Princess Lilibet, 5, in the U.S.
One of their primary reasons for moving to the States was the intense media scrutiny they faced across the pond. Harry took legal action against multiple news outlets, including the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and The Sun. Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) and News Group Newspapers (NGN) both settled their suits with the Duke of Sussex, while Harry’s privacy lawsuit against Associated Newspapers was dismissed by a judge earlier this year due to lack of concrete proof.
Harry continued on Tuesday, “What happened back then was then. What’s happened over that over the last six years has been a continuation of that. Some battles that had been fought — and necessarily so.”
Harry added that his family is ready to move on.
“With everything else that’s going on in the world, there’s aspects of the past that I’m sure all of us — me, my family and some of the British press — that we’d all like to leave behind us and work for the greater good,” he said.
Another reason why Harry and Meghan decided to return to the U.K. was to create “opportunities for the family.”
“Being able to put the kids in a British school has meant a lot to me,” Harry told GQ during the interview, which was conducted in September. “I didn’t know how important it was to me. I always thought it was gonna be something that I would try and do or that we would try and do, but now they’ve been in school for two weeks.”
Harry noted that his kids are “loving” their new school and have been able to gain “a whole different experience,” although he emphasized that he isn’t “criticizing American schools.”
“But I think for kids at 7 and 5 to be able to have that comparison and to have two completely different cultural experiences is so important today,” he explained.
Harry and Meghan also looked forward to being “closer” to his family again despite past tension between the duke, his brother, Prince William, and their father, King Charles III.
“To be back closer to my family and to be back on U.K. soil for longer than a few days or a week here or there, you know? So, it’s nice to be back,” he shared. “It’s been nice to be close to friends, family, friends and friends and their children as well … to be able to have endless playdates to really help our kids settle in.”
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