Harry says his father stopped talking to him after he 'took matters into my own hands.'
Prince Harry revealed during his and wife Meghan Markle's 90-minute interview with Oprah Winfrey, Oprah With Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special that he and his father, Prince Charles, stopped speaking for a time.
The topic came up when the couple was discussing whether or not Queen Elizabeth II, Harry's grandmother, was blindsided by their decision to step down as senior members of the royal family.
"When we were in Canada, I had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father and -- before he stopped taking my calls -- and then [he] said, 'Can you put this all in writing what your plan is?'" Harry said at one point.
Oprah then asks for clarification about why he and his father are no longer speaking.
"Because... by that point, I took matters into my own hands," Harry said. "It was like I need to do this for my family. This is not a surprise to anybody. It's really sad that it's gotten to this point, but I've got to do something for my own mental health, my wife's, and for Archie's, as well, because I could see where this was headed."
Later in the interview, Harry said that his father is now taking his calls.
"Yeah. Yeah, he is," he clarified. "There's a lot to work through there, you know? I -- I feel really let down, because he's been through something similar."
He later went on to say that his father, brother, Prince William, and Kate Middleton "were really welcoming" to Meghan early on.
"But it really changed after the Australia Tour, after our South Pacific Tour," Harry says of their 2018 tour where they announced Meghan's pregnancy with Archie.
He also shared compassion to Charles and William later in the interview, saying he felt "trapped" in the royal family.
"My father and my brother they are all trapped," he said. "They don't get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that."
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