Prince Harry and Meghan, 42, relocated their family to California in 2020. While King Charles’ son has returned to his home country on multiple occasions since, including his father’s coronation in May 2023, the Duchess of Sussex has only been back to the U.K. on a handful of occasions. Her last visit was in September 2022 during Queen Elizabeth’s funeral events.

Their two children were most recently in the U.K. in June 2022, when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended events surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. The family celebrated Lili’s first birthday with a backyard party at Frogmore Cottage, their Windsor home that they were asked to leave after they moved to the U.S. While Archie was born in England, Lili joined the family after their California move.

During the sit-down, Prince Harry also discussed how his fight against the tabloids has played a “central piece” in the rift with his family. (Harry won his phone hacking lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers in December 2023.)

“I think that’s certainly a central piece to it,” the Duke of Sussex said. “That’s a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press.”

“I’ve made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done. It would be nice if we did it as a family,” he continued. “I believe that, again, from a service standpoint and when you’re in a public role, that these are the things that we should be doing for the greater good. But I’m doing this for my reasons.”

Asked about the royals’ decision not to speak out about the issue, he said, “I think everything’s that played out has shown people what the truth of the matter is. For me, the mission continues. But it has caused part of a rift.”

However, Prince Harry said that his late grandmother was supportive of him.

“We had many conversations before she passed, this is very much something she supported, she knew how much this meant to me,” he said. “She is up there going, ‘See this through to the end,’ without question.”

When the topic of his father King Charles and sister-in-law Kate Middleton’s recent cancer diagnoses came up, Prince Harry said, “The two things are completely separate. My father and my sister-in-law and me following through on these legal battles are two completely different things.”

Prince Harry has two ongoing civil cases against the publishers of The Mail and The Sun (both deny unlawful information gathering claims) after the High Court ruled in December that he was hacked by Mirror Group Newspapers.