Prince Harry's family respond to Invictus Games after brutal Netflix jibes

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Prince Harry
Prince Harry's family respond to Invictus Games after brutal Netflix jibes

Gyles Brandreth has claimed that the Royal Family still "care deeply" for Prince Harry after he appeared to take another jab in his new Heart Of Invictus Netflix series.

In the new series, which was released on Wednesday, Prince Harry claims he didn't have a support network after his return from Afghanistan and that he "curled up on the floor in a foetal position". This Morning discussed the new show on Wednesday's episode with Gyles, 75.

Discussing the documentary, Gyles said that the Invictus Games, which Harry set up in 2014 for injured and sick military personnel and veterans, is Harry's "legacy" and a "brilliant achievement" to which host Andi Peters asked: "Gyles, you're closer than any of us to Royals, do you ever get a sense that they still do care for him deeply?"

To which Gyles insisted: "Of course they do, it's the King's son, he loves his son! I think they totally accept that he wanted to start a new life in California, that's fine. But they're thrilled by this [Invictus Games], this is the real achievement. The King is so proud of this, I know personally that the Duke of Edinburgh, the late Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, his grandfather thought: 'Yes, this is what it's all about. Fantastic.' This [Invictus Games] will go on forever."

Prince Harry's family respond to Invictus Games after brutal Netflix jibes eiqtidxideqinvGyles Brandreth has claimed that the Royal Family still "care deeply" for Prince Harry (WireImage)

Heart Of Invictus follows a group of service members on their road to the paralympic-style sporting competition which Harry set up in 2014 for injured and sick military personnel and veterans. A camera crew for the project joined Harry and his wife Meghan when they visited the Games in The Hague in the Netherlands in 2022.

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In the second of five episodes, several of the former service personnel talk about the mental toll of war with Harry also being asked about how his tours of Afghanistan affected him. And he says he "didn't have that support structure, that network or that expert advice to identify actually what was going on with me" after admitting he was angry when he returned from a tour of duty.

He also claims that returning from Afghanistan triggered unresolved trauma caused by the tragic death of his mother Diana in 1997, when Harry was just 12 - and that he only considered therapy once he was left "lying on the floor in the foetal position."

In what appears to be yet another swipe at his royal relatives, Harry says: "Look, I can only speak for my personal experience, my tour of Afghanistan in 2012 flying Apaches, somewhere after that there was an unravelling and the trigger for me was actually returning from Afghanistan.

"But the stuff that was coming up was from 1997, from the age of 12, losing my mum at such a young age, the trauma that I had I was never really aware of, it was never discussed, I didn't really talk about it - and I suppressed it like most youngsters would have done but when it all came fizzing out I was bouncing off the walls, I was like what is going on here, I am now feeling everything as opposed to being numb.

"The biggest struggle for me is no-one around me could really help, I didn't have that support structure that network or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me. Unfortunately, like most of us the first time you really consider therapy is when you are lying on the floor in the foetal position probably wishing you had dealt with some of this stuff previously and that's what I really want to change."

Olivia Wheeler

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