Prince Harry shows anger and resentment during ITV interview, body language expert reveals

Prince Harry displayed anger and resentment while speaking about members of the royal family during his ITV session, a body language expert has said.

The Duke of Sussex, 38, has sat down with ITV’s Tom Bradby in a commercial blitz for his new bombastic memoir Spare.

During the interview, Harry addresses a number of issues covered in the book, including his use of cocaine a few times during his wilder partying years and his relationship and his sensational accusation to Camilla of plotting to marry Charles.

In Spare, the Duke claims that he and his brother William “begged” the then Prince of Wales not to remarry after Princess Diana’s death, fearing she would be their “wicked stepmother”.

Prince Harry and Prince William pictured attending the former’s wedding at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle

Body language expert Judi James told MailOnline that Harry showed examples of “anger and resentment” when discussing the Queen Consort.

She said: “Harry’s body language signals are conflicting when he talks about his father. His voice drops and his features soften, but he also appears to be physically preparing for a challenge or confrontation, though he recounts how he’s already opened up to his father and received the apology he seems to have been craving.

“Sometimes he looks tearful, but his mantra: ‘I love my father. i love my brother I love my family,” sounds like an emotionless recitation. The expression “certain members of my family” triggers signals of anger and resentment.

“He sucks in his lips and describes how they ‘decided to go to bed with the devil’, using precise gestures to signal integrity and propriety. His “murderer” accusation comes here through a pantomime. With one hand for his family and the other for the tabloids, he presses one hand over the other.

With Camilla Harry is a jumble of conflicting signals. He acts out anger when Tom hints that he’s been “devastating” to her, but his hand lands on his hip in a partially splayed gesture of aggressive excitement or repulsion.

“His positive comments slip towards a ‘but…’ as he sniffs and balks before politically dodging again to get away from that more specific target.”

In his autobiography, Harry describes smoking cannabis and booze – but he revealed for the first time how he was offered a string of cocaine during a hunting weekend.

Harry admits he lied to royal household staff during his interrogation, saying doing cocaine “wasn’t fun” and did it in part to be different and because he was a “seventeen-year-old who was willing trying almost anything that would upset the established order’.

Ms James says Harry showed signs of appearing “shamed and apologetic” at having to address his cocaine use.

She added: “Tom Bradbury brings up the issue of drugs with understandable signals of awkwardness and embarrassment, raising his eyebrows, bowing his head and asking for permission almost without words. However, once he gets on the subject, he becomes a terrier with a bone between his teeth.

Harry’s response is that of a politician, both verbally and non-verbally. He strikes and holds a confident pose, apart from raising his torso to indicate that instead of looking embarrassed or apologetic, he is preparing to ooze righteousness and outrage.

Tom asks if a “Class A drug” isn’t in the public interest, and Harry makes a political swerve, repeating the words “what is a matter of public interest” to divert attention from drugs namely “the relationship between the institution and the tabloid media”.

“His protruding lower jaw signals resentment and anger, and his hands twirl in the air in a fit of his emphatic leadership-style rituals.”

In the book, Harry claims his brother William invoked their mother’s memory during an argument about his interview with Oprah.

The Duke wrote that William became heated when they spoke after her grandfather Prince Philip’s funeral in 2021.

Harry claims he tried to address bullying allegations against Meghan before claiming William “really steamed” and grabbed him as he tried to walk away.

Ms James says Harry displayed “evasive maneuvers” and “discomfort” when discussing the rift with his brother.

The Duke of Sussex, 38, has sat down with ITV’s Tom Bradby in a commercial blitz for his new bombastic memoir Spare

Prince Harry with his brother Prince William and father Prince Charles at Princess Diana’s funeral

She added: “Tom Bradbury uses a first-person role-playing technique when he questions Harry about William. He adopts the role, body language and words of William, playing off potential confusion and a sense that Harry has betrayed him.

“It’s a powerful technique that can aim to get the respondent to answer in the same way or to give a more realistic answer. Role-playing like this may seem a little over the top, but in an emotional situation it can often evoke reactions that normal questioning cannot.

“Harry gets very reserved here though, which makes it sound like a political interview. He performs a cut-off ritual and puts a hand to his nose. This can often reflect a desire to cover or hide the mouth or part of the face, which in turn can be evasive.’

Ms James continues, “When Tom, in the role of William, says, ‘How could you do that to me?’ Harry squirms to avoid ball games. His eyes move to the right and also up. Avoiding eye contact like this can also indicate discomfort or evasive maneuvers.

“As Tom keeps pushing and asking if he’s invading the privacy of your nearest and dearest,” Harry touches his nose and sniffs, hiding what appears to be an angry or pained grimace. His answers become less direct and more political as he says William could say many things rather than making more specific speculations.

Speaking about his mother’s death, Harry recalled that he “couldn’t show any feelings” in public after her fatal car accident in 1997 and that he only shed tears at her funeral.

He also spoke of feeling “a little guilty” as he greeted crowds gathered to pay their respects to his mother outside Kensington Palace

Ms James described how Harry tried to show a “signal of bravery” but likely masked grief.

She said: “Harry’s body language when discussing his mother’s death and his reactions and feelings at the time suggest a distancing, as if it’s still too raw and painful to fully immerse himself in the narrative.

“It starts with an incongruent signal. His eyes move sideways and he performs a very faint smile, used as a signal of bravery. This is often a sign that someone is masking, that is, hiding their pain or sadness.

“His eyes then roll up in a truncated ritual, and here we get a glimpse of the pain as his mouth stretches into a horizontal grimace, revealing his bottom teeth, like a flinch of physical pain.”

“But then he seems to take an outsider’s perspective, almost as if he were a commentator on his own documentary. His left hand moves in a conductor’s gesture to indicate control while deviating from first person as if speaking over someone else.

“The two people she loved the most couldn’t show any emotion” sounds like he’s looking into these two tragic boys rather than engaging with and identifying with his young self, and again it’s suggested that it’s yet to raw is manageable for him.

Prince Harry sat down for her first primetime interview tonight to promote his memoir Spare

The Duke of Sussex talks a lot about his mother in his new memoir, Spare, which is due out in the UK on January 10

“Everyone thought and felt like they knew our mother and the two people closest to her, the two people she loved the most, couldn’t show emotion at that moment,” he tells presenter Tom Bradby.

Harry also reveals how his father sat him down on a bed before breaking the news.

He says Prince Charles called him “my dear son” before telling him his mother was unlikely to survive the head injuries sustained in the accident in Paris in the early hours of August 31, 1997.

Painting the picture of an emotionally distant father, the prince says Charles “wasn’t good at expressing his feelings”.

In a passage read aloud on ITV, Harry says: “What I remember with amazing clarity is that I didn’t cry. No tear. My father didn’t hug me.’

In the book, the Duke recalls asking to visit his mother while she was in hospital.

However, he says his father declared she “didn’t recover” before saying he stayed alone in his room until the next morning.

He recalled that he and his brother William were forbidden from watching television lest they see the news about the car accident.