The Duke and Duchess of Sussex seemed “vulnerable” and “bruised” during the filming of an ITV documentary about their royal tour to southern Africa, the programme’s presenter has revealed.
In Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, Prince Harry opened up about his aversion to paparazzi and confessed that he and his brother, the Duke of Cambridge, are on “different paths”, fuelling speculation that the two have grown apart.
Meanwhile, the Duchess of Sussex revealed she had been struggling with criticisms in the media, telling ITV’s Tom Bradby that she was not really “okay”.
Now, Bradby, who has known Prince Harry since the royal was a teen, has revealed he knew that things weren’t “entirely rosy” for the couple ahead of filming and encouraged Harry to be honest in his interviews.
“I’d seen them obviously before we left and had a pretty long chat and so I formed a certain view there,” Bradby told Good Morning America.
“And I speak to Harry relatively often and have done over the years so, as I said, I knew that things weren’t entirely brilliant behind the scenes, but it sort of built as the tour went on really.”
Speaking about the conversations he had with Prince Harry specifically, Bradby explained they had a “couple of private heart-to-hearts” ahead of filming, after which Brady told the royal: “Let’s just go out and tell the truth as you see it.”
While Bradby had initially set out for the documentary to focus on the philanthropic work Harry and Meghan were doing on their trip, as filming went on he found that another story about their wellbeing was emerging.
“The reality I found was just a couple that seemed a bit bruised and vulnerable,” said Bradby.
“That was the story I found and it seemed the right journalistic thing to do, to try and tell that story as empathetically as I could.”
As for what he hopes viewers take away from the film, which aired in the UK on Sunday evening, Bradby said: “I do hope that it’s that everyone, perhaps including them, takes a really deep breath and maybe thinks really hard about how the future may play out.”
