Royals
Prince Harry Breaks Silence On King Charles’ Cancer Diagnosis
The Duke of Sussex says he “jumped on a plane” the moment his father called to tell him the news.
Prince Harry says he didn’t waste any time and “jumped on a plane” the moment he found out his father, King Charles III, had been diagnosed with cancer. The Duke of Sussex hadn’t publicly addressed his father’s health news when he quickly traveled to the UK last week, but has now shared a few details about his visit.
In a new interview with Good Morning America, Prince Harry told ABC News’ Will Reeve that his father had called him directly to inform him about his cancer diagnosis. “I spoke to him,” the duke said when asked how he got the news. “I jumped on a plane and went to go see him as soon as I could.”
Prince Harry arrived in London on Jan.6, less than 24 hours after Buckingham Palace issued a statement about the king’s health. His visit was quick, leaving the following day to fly back to California, where his wife Meghan Markle had stayed with their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. He reportedly spent less than an hour with King Charles at his London home and did not see his brother, Prince William, while he was there.
When asked how that was visit was “emotionally” for him, Prince Harry told Reeve he was “grateful” he could be there. “Look, I love my family,” he told Good Morning America. “The fact that I was able to get on a plane and go and see him and spend any time with him, I’m grateful for that.”
Prince Harry, who was in Whistler with Markle for the Invictus Games training sessions ahead of the 2025 games, did not provide any further details on the “outlook” of his father’s diagnosis, but said he’s “sure” this moment can help reunify his family. “Throughout all these families I see it on a day to day basis, again, the strength of the family unit coming together. I think any illness, any sickness brings families together,” he said.
“I’ve got other trip plans that will take me through the U.K., or back to the U.K., and so I’ll stop in and see my family as much as I can,” Prince Harry added.
A rift between Prince Harry and his royal relatives has grown tenser over the years since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back from their royal roles in 2020 and after the release of Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir, Spare. The brothers have reunited for big family moments, like Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2022, but it’s clear their fraught relationship still needs repairing. Prince Harry even revealed in an excerpt from Spare that King Charles had begged his sons to stop fighting after an altercation outside Frogmore Cottage. “Enough! Please don’t make my final years a misery,” Prince Harry recalls his father yelling at them.
While Prince William rarely speaks about his strained relationship with his brother publicly, Prince Harry previously said during an interview with Stephen Colbert that he doesn’t think the “distance” between them would exist if Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997, was still alive. “We wouldn’t have got to this moment,” he said. “It’s impossible to say where we would be now — where those relationships would be now — but there is no way that the distance between my brother and I would be the same.”
Only time will tell if this difficult moment can indeed reunify the family.
