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Archie Real Father Rumors DESTROYED By ONE Word Harry Wrote On Birth Certificate — Transcript

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0:00So, Prince Harry signed his son's birth
0:03certificate 11 days after Archie was
0:05born. Wrote one word in the box that
0:07asks what his relationship to the child
0:09is. And that word has been sitting in
0:12public records since May 2019, while an
0:15entire corner of the internet pretends
0:17it doesn't exist. The word is father.
0:19That's it. That's the whole mystery. But
0:22for the past several months, a little
0:24industry of YouTube channels has been
0:26telling millions of people that a secret
0:28DNA test exposed the true paternity of
0:31Prince Argie. That Harry cut every tie
0:34with his family the day the results came
0:36back. And that somewhere in a laboratory
0:38drawer there's a swab in a bag that
0:40proves all of it. None of those channels
0:42have ever shown a single document. Not
0:45one lab report, not one clinic name, not
0:48one date, just a red arrow, a grainy
0:51photo of a seven-year-old boy, and the
0:53word paternity stamped across the
0:55thumbnail in yellow letters. Type
0:57Archie's name into YouTube this week,
0:59and the word paternity comes up before
1:01his birthday does. A child who has never
1:04given an interview in his life now has a
1:07rumor stapled to his name and his father
1:09has a second rumor stapled to his. And
1:11the answer to both of them sits on one
1:14page, one line filled in by Prince Harry
1:17himself. Before we go any further, real
1:19quick, if you enjoy this kind of deep
1:21dive into royal drama and the stories
1:24behind the headlines, hit subscribe to
1:26Crown Watch. We break down the
1:28timelines, the documents, and the
1:30contradictions so you don't have to sit
1:32through a 100 clickbait videos to figure
1:34out what's actually going on. Okay, back
1:37to it. Start with the part that's real,
1:39because there is a real part to this
1:40story, and honestly, it hurts more than
1:43the invented one. Late this summer,
1:45according to a string of reports, Harry
1:46and Megan brought Archie and Libet back
1:48to Britain to live. I say reports on
1:50purpose. The couple haven't stood on a
1:53doorstep and announced anything, and I'd
1:55rather be careful than quick. But if
1:57those reports hold, then after 6 years
2:00in California, after the Oprah
2:02interview, after the Netflix series, and
2:05after the book, those two children now
2:07live within a drive of their
2:08grandfather. You could do it on a
2:10Sunday. Lunch, a walk around the garden,
2:13a cup of tea, and home again before it
2:16gets dark. [music] And according to the
2:18people who follow this family most
2:20closely, that Sunday hasn't come. The
2:23reporting says Harry and his father
2:25haven't sat in the same room since July.
2:28The relationship, such as it is, runs
2:30down a telephone line. Picture that for
2:33a second. A king in his garden in
2:35Glstershare. His son somewhere out in
2:38the English countryside. A few miles of
2:40road between them and the only thing
2:42traveling along that road is a phone
2:44call. That picture is where the cuts all
2:46ties headlines came from. Somebody
2:48noticed that no camera had caught the
2:50father and the son together for months
2:52and decided that meant the end. Hold one
2:54question in your head as we go because
2:56I'm coming back to it near the finish.
2:58Is a father and son who still speak on
3:00the phone the same thing as a family
3:02that has cut all their ties? Or is it
3:05something sadder than that? Two men who
3:07still pick up when the other one rings
3:09and still can't manage to walk into the
3:11same room. The commentators can't agree
3:13on which way the king is leaning. And
3:16that argument feeds everything else in
3:18the story. One camp has been saying for
3:20well over a year that Charles is quietly
3:22desperate to have his younger son back.
3:25That somebody is holding a door open
3:27that a softer chapter is on its way. The
3:29other camp calls all of that wishful
3:32thinking fed to the press by people
3:34around the Sussex's and says the king is
3:36keeping his distance on purpose while
3:38Harry keeps up his long fight over his
3:40security in this country. I've heard
3:42voices in that second camp go further.
3:45They say some royal supporters and maybe
3:47a few people inside the family aren't
3:50unhappy with the way things are turning
3:51out. Not unhappy. Those two words are
3:54worth remembering and I'll pick them up
3:56again later. Those are opinions and I'm
3:58handing them to you as opinions, but you
4:00can see the shape of the thing. Two loud
4:03camps, no statement from the palace, no
4:06statement from the couple, and a gap in
4:08the middle. In this family, a gap never
4:10stays empty for long. Somebody always
4:13fills it. And the people who fill it
4:15fastest are rarely the people with the
4:18facts. That brings me to the second
4:19story, the one running alongside the
4:21first, [music] the one with the
4:23thumbnails. The DNA videos are counting
4:25on you not checking one thing. As far as
4:28I can find, none of the serious royal
4:31commentators, and that includes the ones
4:33who can't stand Harry and Megan, has
4:35ever claimed that a test exists. None of
4:37them says they've seen a lab report. The
4:40fiercest critics keep going back to
4:43something else entirely. They go back to
4:45the morning Archie was born and to a
4:48piece of paper. That's where we're going
4:50to. To understand that morning, you have
4:52to go back a little further to the
4:54autumn before. On the 15th of October
4:572018, Kensington Palace announced that
5:00the Duchess of Sussex was expecting a
5:02baby in the spring. The couple had
5:04landed in Sydney the day before at the
5:06start of a long tour of Australia, Fiji,
5:09Tonga, and New Zealand. And the news
5:11went round the world before they had
5:12finished their first engagement. They
5:14had married that May on the 19th of May
5:172018 at St. George's Chapel in Windsor
5:19with the whole country watching. 5
5:21months later, a baby. People in the
5:23crowds in Sydney handed over little
5:25knitted boots and soft toys, and the
5:28couple looked as happy as any two people
5:30I've ever seen on a royal tour. Then
5:32came the spring of 2019 and two things
5:35happened that matter for everything
5:37after. In early April, the couple
5:39launched their own Instagram account,
5:41Sussex Royal, and it broke a world
5:43record. A million followers in under 6
5:46hours. For the first time, a royal
5:49couple had a direct line to the public
5:51that didn't run through a palace press
5:53office or a newspaper. A few days later,
5:56the palace put out a short statement on
5:58their behalf. The Duke and Duchess, it
6:00said, had taken a personal decision to
6:02keep the plans around the arrival of
6:04their baby private, and they would share
6:06the news once they had had the chance to
6:08celebrate privately as a new family.
6:11Read that today and it sounds harmless.
6:14Plenty of parents would say the same
6:16thing. For a royal birth, though, it
6:18broke a habit that went back generations
6:20and the papers knew it. The
6:22photographers had stood outside the
6:25Lindo wing three times for William and
6:27Catherine. This time they had no
6:28pavement to stand on and nobody to ask
6:31and a press pack with nowhere to stand
6:33starts looking for something else to do.
6:36Monday the 6th of May 2019, the baby
6:39arrived at 5:26 in the morning. Hours
6:41later, around lunchtime, Buckingham
6:44Palace put out word that the Duchess of
6:46Sussex had gone into labor in the early
6:48hours. A little after that, the couple's
6:51own Instagram account announced that
6:53their son had been born and gave a time
6:55of birth that was by then more than
6:57eight hours old. Read that order back to
6:59yourself slowly. The country heard that
7:01Megan was in labor while Archie was
7:03already in the world and by every
7:05account perfectly well. Harry has
7:07written about that mixup himself since
7:10in his memoir. And the way most people
7:12read the passage, he puts it down to the
7:14communication side getting it badly
7:16wrong. He also seems to understand that
7:18this muddled morning is where every
7:20birth theory you've ever heard about his
7:22son first took root. Sit with that for a
7:25moment. By the father's own account, the
7:27information failed that day. And once
7:29official information fails in this
7:31family, rumor behaves like water in a
7:33cracked pipe. It finds the gap and it
7:35pours through. The palace kept one old
7:38ritual going all the same. Staff carried
7:41a frame notice out to the easel in the
7:44forcourt of Buckingham Palace. the same
7:46easel that had announced George and
7:48Charlotte and Lewis and tourists pressed
7:50up against the railings with their
7:51phones held high to read it. The baby
7:54weighed 7 lbs 3 o. Mother and child, the
7:57notice said, were both doing well. That
8:00same afternoon, Harry walked out to the
8:02stables at Windsor and stood in front of
8:04a single camera. No Megan beside him, no
8:07baby in his arms, a man who looked as
8:09though he hadn't slept for a week,
8:11grinning so widely he could barely get
8:13the words out. He told the country it
8:15was the most amazing experience he could
8:17ever have imagined. And he called his
8:19son this little thing. Absolutely to die
8:21for. He said the baby had come a little
8:23late, so they'd had some extra time to
8:25think about names. It was a lovely
8:27moment. And if you watch it now, it
8:30still is. The people who make a living
8:32out of doubt didn't watch the grin,
8:34though. They watched the clock.
8:36Reporters who covered the story at the
8:37time have said for years that the
8:39answers they got back about the timing
8:41in the place didn't line up neatly.
8:43That's their account, and I'm telling
8:45you plainly that it's theirs. No matter
8:47what you make of it, the handling of
8:49that one morning gave critics years of
8:51ammunition, and there was more coming
8:53within 48 hours. There's a photograph
8:56from June 1982 that most of you can see
8:59without closing your eyes. Diana on the
9:01front steps of the Lindo Wing at St.
9:03Mary's Hospital in Paddington. A day
9:06after giving birth, holding the baby who
9:08would grow up to be Prince William, with
9:10Charles at her side in a wall of
9:12photographers below her. Two years
9:14later, she came down those same steps
9:16with Harry wrapped in a white shaw. That
9:18picture of a young mother on a hospital
9:20step, tired and smiling and doing it
9:23anyway, turned into a national habit.
9:25Catherine came down the very same steps
9:28with each of her three children. with
9:30Louie in April 2018. She came out about
9:33seven hours after giving birth in a red
9:35dress with a white lace collar and waved
9:38to the crowd as if it were any ordinary
9:40Monday evening. For Archie, there were
9:42no steps. The world first saw him 2 days
9:45after he was born on the 8th of May
9:48inside St. George's Hall at Windsor
9:50Castle. And the person [music] cradling
9:53him in front of the cameras was his
9:55father. Harry held the baby. Megan stood
9:58beside him and afterwards the queen met
10:01her great-grandson privately with the
10:02Duke of Edinburgh and Megan's mother in
10:05the room. A couple of hours later, the
10:07couple told the world his name on
10:09Instagram. Archie Harrison Mountbatten
10:11Windsor. People who enjoy that kind of
10:14thing pointed out straight away that
10:16Harrison means son of Harry. American
10:19breakfast television picked up on the
10:21phone call immediately. presenters
10:23pointed out that tradition usually puts
10:25the baby in the mother's arms. Defenders
10:28came back every bit as fast and on that
10:30particular point they had the better
10:32argument. There is no rule about who
10:34holds a royal newborn. Megan had given
10:37birth 2 days before. Nobody owes a
10:40camera a staircase. And the Sussex's had
10:42told everybody for months that they
10:44meant to do things their own way. Even
10:46one of the American entertainment shows
10:48conceded that no rule had ever obliged
10:50Katherine to carry her babies either.
10:52Fair enough. Let me ask you something,
10:54though, and I'd love to read the answers
10:56in the comments. The first time you saw
10:58that Windsor photograph, did anything
11:00about it strike you as odd, or did it
11:02look like any other proud new dad in a
11:05nice room? For most of the country, it
11:06looked lovely. For one small corner of
11:09the internet, it became exhibit one in a
11:11case that still has no evidence in it.
11:13Let me step away from 2019 for a minute
11:15and show you the other line in this
11:17story, cuz it runs right alongside the
11:19paper trail, and it never once touches
11:20it. The videos claiming a DNA test
11:23follow a recipe. A synthetic voice or a
11:26real one reading very fast. Stock
11:28footage of a laboratory. Gloved hands. A
11:31test tube held up to the light. A still
11:33of Harry looking grim lifted from some
11:35unrelated day years ago. A red circle
11:38drawn round nothing in particular. A
11:40title that names a result and a
11:42thumbnail that names a child. Some of
11:44those channels put out two or three of
11:46these a day about different families
11:49with the same music underneath. Money
11:51explains the rest. The rough figure
11:54people in that business quote is a few
11:55pounds for every thousand views.
11:58Sometimes less, sometimes more. Put a
12:00million views on one of those videos.
12:03And you're talking about thousands of
12:05pounds for something that took an
12:06afternoon to stitch together. Nobody
12:08pays the channel a penny for checking.
12:11Nobody finds the channel for being
12:12wrong. The whole incentive points one
12:15way and it points straight through a
12:17seven-year-old's name. Keep that
12:19picture. The Stock Laboratory in the red
12:21circle and set it next to the real thing
12:23I'm about to put in front of you. One
12:25line turns out noise by the hour. The
12:27other produced one page in 2019 and the
12:29name in the father's box on that page
12:31has never moved. The next detail
12:33surprised a lot of people. Archie wasn't
12:36born at Frogmore Cottage. The house at
12:38Windsor that the couple had renovated
12:40with 2.4 4 million pounds of public
12:42money, money Harry paid back in
12:44September 2020. He wasn't born on the
12:47Lindo wing either. He arrived at the
12:49Portland, a private hospital on Great
12:52Portland Street in central London with
12:54no press pack waiting on the pavement
12:56outside. He wasn't the last royal baby
12:58born there either. In February 2021,
13:01Princess Eugenie had her son August at
13:04the Portland 2 and hardly anybody
13:06blinked. One of the best known critics
13:09of the couple has talked about the
13:10Portland a great many times. She
13:12describes it in her own colorful way as
13:14the sort of place where people with
13:16enough money more or less rent the rooms
13:18and bring in their own medical team
13:20[music] and where the staff go out of
13:22their way to oblige. Strong language.
13:24But pay attention to the part the
13:26thumbnail channels always cut. Each time
13:28she brings up the Portland, she stops
13:30herself. She says, "A couple who wanted
13:32privacy would naturally choose a
13:34hospital like that." and privacy is
13:36exactly what Harry and Megan told
13:38everybody they wanted. Then she says she
13:40isn't accusing the hospital of anything
13:42improper and she isn't accusing anybody
13:44of anything. That leaves a puzzle. If
13:46she isn't accusing anyone, she keeps
13:48circling back to the Portland for some
13:50reason. And the reason is a royal custom
13:52most people have never heard of. For
13:54centuries, a government minister had to
13:56be present at a royal birth, either in
13:58the room or in the room next door.
14:00[music] And by the 20th century, that
14:02job fell to the home secretary. It
14:04sounds absurd now. It started because of
14:06a scandal in 1688 when enemies of King
14:10James II spread a story that somebody
14:12had smuggled his newborn son into the
14:14queen's bed in a warming pan. That baby,
14:17James Francis Edward Stewart, grew up to
14:20be the man the history books call the
14:22old pretender. And the warming pan story
14:25followed him to his grave. a minister at
14:28the bedside meant nobody could ever
14:31again question who had been born to
14:33whom. The custom lasted far longer than
14:35you'd guess. In April 1926,
14:38as the future Queen Elizabeth arrived at
14:40number 17 Brutin Street in Mayfair, the
14:43home secretary of the day, Sir William
14:45Jointen Hicks, sat waiting in the next
14:47room. 10 years later, on Christmas Day
14:501936, a home secretary still turned up
14:53for the birth of Princess Alexandra of
14:55Kent. George V 6th quietly dropped the
14:58custom before Charles himself arrived in
15:011948. After that, people trusted the
15:04royal doctors who signed the bulletins
15:06on the palace railings to be the
15:08witnesses. [music] The critics who keep
15:10raising the Portland want that old
15:11custom back. Their argument concerns the
15:14line of succession which they say
15:16belongs to the public rather than to one
15:19couple and a child in that line arriving
15:21somewhere the country can't see.
15:23Paternity never comes into it. Some of
15:25them call Archie's birth a matter of
15:27real public interest and say the secrecy
15:29around it had no excuse. That's one
15:31side. The other side says any family has
15:34the right to a private birth and that no
15:36royal baby owes the country a minister
15:38at the bedside. [music] I can see both.
15:40Tell me where you land. Should a royal
15:43birth have an independent witness again?
15:45Yes or no? I'd honestly like to see how
15:48split you are on it. A quick word from
15:50me before the next port. Everything I'm
15:52laying out for you is my reading of
15:54public records and public reporting put
15:56together the way it makes sense to me
15:58and you're free to read it differently.
15:59Now, keep a date in your head, the 17th
16:01of May. It's the date on the page I've
16:03got open and we're about to start
16:05turning it over. In England, parents
16:07have 42 days to register a birth. Most
16:10people do it in a council office with a
16:12numbered ticket and a row of plastic
16:14chairs, and the registar asks the same
16:17handful of questions of everybody,
16:19prince or plumber. 11 days after the
16:22birth on the 17th of May 2019, [music]
16:25Harry went in and registered his son
16:27himself. The certificate that came out
16:30of that appointment listed the mother
16:32according to the copies the newspapers
16:34later printed as Rachel Megan, her royal
16:36highness, the Duchess of Sussex. Under
16:38her occupation, it said Princess of the
16:40United Kingdom. Nobody had ever seen
16:42that written on a British birth
16:44certificate. Then on the 5th of June,
16:46somebody amended the entry. The first
16:48names Rachel Megan came out. So the
16:51mother's line read, "Her Royal Highness,
16:53the Duchess of Sussex," and nothing
16:56more. On the father's side, the word
16:58Prince went in. For almost 2 years,
17:01hardly anybody noticed. The story broke
17:04in April 2021, and the couple's
17:06spokesperson answered quickly and with
17:08some force. According to reporting, at
17:11the time, their side said the couple
17:12never asked for any change, that the
17:15palace had dictated it, and that senior
17:17palace officials had confirmed as much
17:19in writing. They called the suggestion
17:21that Megan would want to be nameless on
17:23her own son's certificate offensive, and
17:26they had harsh words for the tabloids
17:28and the commentators who had turned it
17:30into a story about a snub. That's their
17:32side, and it deserves a full hearing
17:34because it remains the only on there
17:36explanation anybody has ever given. The
17:39other side came from unnamed palace
17:41sources, never on the record. The
17:44explanation that floated around was that
17:46the mother's name on the certificate had
17:48to match the name on her passport. Neat,
17:51tidy, logical. The critic who talks
17:54about the Portland didn't believe a word
17:56of it. She asked why on earth the palace
17:58would insist on removing the very
18:00details that make a mother identifiable
18:02on her own child's certificate. And she
18:04said a mother's name doesn't need to
18:06match a passport to go on a birth
18:08certificate at all. That leaves you with
18:10two accounts running headon into each
18:12other. The Sussex's say the palace made
18:14them do it. Anonymous palace voices
18:17suggest the opposite. Both can't be
18:19true, and neither side has put a scrap
18:21of paperwork on the table. That same
18:23critic finished her argument with a
18:24sentence, I want you to keep. She said,
18:26"It is highly irregular to change a
18:29birth certificate in a way that removes
18:31something true and creates doubt where
18:33there shouldn't be any." And in the very
18:36next breath, she said she would never
18:38imply that this is what happened. Hold
18:40on to that second half. You'll want it
18:42soon. Notice which line on the page all
18:45of this fighting is about. Every
18:46argument, every clip, every furious
18:49thread online concerns the mother's
18:52details. The name written in the
18:54father's box state exactly where Harry
18:56put it. I'm going to make you wait a
18:58little longer for the word at the end of
18:59that line because there's one more fight
19:02over this boy's identity that you need
19:04to see first. [music] At birth, Archie
19:07had no royal title. He went out into the
19:10world as Archie Mountbat in Windsor and
19:12plenty of American outlets praised it as
19:14a modern choice. A little boy spared all
19:16the trappings. His parents made a choice
19:19there too. On their wedding morning, the
19:21queen had made Harry Duke of Sussex,
19:23Earl of Dumbartan, and Baron Kilkiel.
19:27And by long custom, the eldest son of a
19:29Duke borrows the second of his father's
19:31titles. Archie could have been the Earl
19:33of Dumbartan in his cot. His parents
19:35said no and the palace website listed
19:38him as plain master Archie. Two years
19:41later sitting with Oprah, Megan told a
19:43very different story about titles and
19:45protection and the row over that ran for
19:47months. The rule underneath it all is
19:50older than any of them. Letters patent
19:51from George V in 1917 say that
19:54grandchildren of a reigning monarch
19:56through a son or princes and princesses.
19:59It might not look fair, but it's the
20:01rule. On the 8th of September 2022, the
20:04queen died at Balmoral. Charles became
20:07king and in that instant Archie became a
20:09prince. No ceremony, no letter, no
20:12announcement. The palace website caught
20:14up the following March after Liet's
20:16christening and started calling him
20:18Prince Archie of Sussex. A bishop from
20:20Los Angeles had christened Lileette at
20:23home in Monteceto on the 3rd of March
20:262023. And five days later, the couple's
20:29spokesperson used the words Princess
20:31Liizabeth in public for the first time.
20:33On the day he was born, Archie stood
20:36seventh in line to the throne. Today, he
20:38stands sixth, straight after his father,
20:41and that place in the line is the reason
20:43the paperwork around his birth draws so
20:46much attention. Critics have never let
20:48that go. The couple who stepped back
20:50from the institution kept the titles it
20:52handed their children and the king who
20:54could have changed the rule chose not
20:56to. One prominent commentator still
20:58writes so-called Prince Archie whenever
21:00he mentions the boy. The months before
21:02the coronation were the hardest yet. In
21:05December 2022, the couple's Netflix
21:07series came out. Six episodes of it. On
21:10the 10th of January 2023, Harry
21:13published Spare and his publisher said
21:15it sold more than 1.4 4 million copies
21:18on its first day across Britain,
21:20America, and Canada, the fastests
21:22selling non-fiction book this country
21:24had ever seen. Then, at the start of
21:26March, the couple's spokesperson
21:28confirmed that the king's side had asked
21:30them to vacate Frogmore Cottage, the
21:32house the queen had given them, the
21:34first home Archie ever knew. Then came
21:37the morning of the coronation, the 6th
21:39of May, 2023. If you remember the date
21:42from a few minutes ago, you've already
21:43spotted it. It was Archie's fourth
21:45birthday. His father flew over alone and
21:48sat in the third row of Westminster
21:50Abbey, half hidden behind Princess Anne
21:53and the plume on her hat, while his
21:55brother knelt a few yards in front of
21:56him and kissed their father's cheek.
21:58Harry didn't ride in a carriage. He
22:00didn't stand on the balcony. Within
22:02hours of the crowning, he was in a car
22:04to Heathrow and on a plane back to
22:06California, home for his son's birthday.
22:09Millions of people watched the king's
22:11second son sit three rows back at his
22:13own father's coronation and then slip
22:16away before the fly passed. Love him or
22:18not, that was a hard thing to watch. The
22:20secrecy didn't stop at Titles. 2 months
22:23after he was born on the 6th of July
22:252019, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
22:28Justin Welby, the same man who had
22:30married his parents a little over a year
22:32earlier, christened Archie in the
22:35Queen's private chapel at Windsor.
22:37Archie wore the handmade copy of the old
22:40Victorian royal christing gown, the same
22:42one George and Lewis wore before him. No
22:46cameras inside. The couple never
22:48released the names of his godparents
22:50then or since. Two photographs went up
22:52on Instagram and that was the end of it.
22:54One royal author said at the time that
22:56he couldn't care less who the godparents
22:59were. He minded the refusal to say. It's
23:02a fair point and it sits at the heart of
23:04this whole saga. A couple asked for
23:06privacy and also asked for the world's
23:08attention. And the rest of us are left
23:10trying to work out where the line falls.
23:12Archie's first big public outing came
23:14that September in South Africa. He was 4
23:17months old. In Cape Town, his parents
23:19carried him in to meet Archbishop
23:22Desmond Tutu, and the photographs of the
23:24old man bending over the baby went
23:27everywhere. Years later, on her podcast,
23:29Megan described the frightening moment
23:31from that same tour. She said a heater
23:33in the nursery where Archie should have
23:35been napping caught fire and that by
23:37sheer luck the baby wasn't in the room.
23:40She told that story to explain how
23:42scared she had been for him. Her critics
23:44heard it differently as one more private
23:46detail shared on her terms and nobody
23:48else's. 4 months after that tour came
23:51January 2020 and the announcement that
23:53the couple were stepping back as senior
23:56working royals. They went to Canada
23:58first to Vancouver Island and then on to
24:01Los Angeles. In July that year, they
24:04went to court in California over
24:06photographs of Archie, saying
24:08photographers had tried to take pictures
24:10of him in the garden of the house where
24:12they were staying. By that summer, they
24:14had bought a house in Monteceto and the
24:17little boy with no title was growing up
24:19a very long way from Windsor. Less than
24:21a year after that move, they shared
24:23something about Archie with the entire
24:25world, and it was the most explosive
24:27thing either of them has ever said.
24:29Sunday the 7th of March, 2021, Megan sat
24:33across from Oprah Winfrey in a garden in
24:35California, and on her wrist was a
24:37Cardier diamond bracelet that had
24:39belonged to Diana. The fashion writers
24:42spotted it within hours. Harry's mother,
24:44in a way, was sitting in on the
24:45interview that would split her sons
24:47further apart than anything since her
24:49funeral. More than 17 million people
24:51watched it on CBS in America, and around
24:5411 million more watched it on ITV here
24:56the following night. Megan described
24:58conversations inside the family before
25:00Archie was born, about his security,
25:03about his title, and then about concerns
25:05and conversations over how dark his skin
25:07might be when he was born. She wouldn't
25:09say who. Harry asked the same thing.
25:12Wouldn't say either. The next morning,
25:14Oprah told American television only who
25:16it wasn't. Harry had assured her it was
25:19neither his grandmother nor his
25:21grandfather. That one claim went through
25:23the family like a crack across ice. A
25:26few days later, Prince William, out
25:28visiting a school in East London, turned
25:30to a reporter shouted question and said
25:33the royals were very much not a racist
25:35family. The heir to the throne on a
25:37school visit, answering for his family
25:39on the pavement because of something his
25:41brother's wife had said on American
25:43television. For years afterwards, the
25:46Sussex's stood behind every word. A
25:48month after the interview, on the 9th of
25:50April 2021, Prince Philip died at
25:53Windsor and Harry flew in alone for his
25:56grandfather's funeral. Megan, heavily
25:58pregnant, stayed in California under
26:01doctor's advice. Then on the 4th of June
26:032021, Lileette arrived at Santa Barbara
26:06Cottage Hospital, named for the Queen's
26:09childhood nickname, and Archie became a
26:11big brother at the age of two. Within
26:13days, the papers were arguing about
26:15whether anybody had asked the queen
26:16before the name went public. Even a baby
26:19sister's name turned into a fight. A
26:21year later, in June 2022, the family
26:24flew over for the Queen's Platinum
26:25Jubilee. Liet turned one at Frogmore
26:28Cottage on the 4th of June, and the
26:30Queen met her great granddaughter for
26:32the first time. Harry and Megan sat in
26:34St. Paul's for the Thanksgiving service,
26:37but they didn't stand on the balcony,
26:39and the children stayed out of sight the
26:41whole trip. More recently, a newspaper
26:44report built on a single unnamed source
26:46said to be close to the couple claimed
26:48that Megan now regrets that part of the
26:50interview more than anything else, and
26:52that Harry backed her at the time
26:53because he was angry with his family. If
26:56that were true, it would be the first
26:57crack in the Oprah story from inside
26:59their own camp. People speaking for the
27:02couple dismissed it as nonsense. An
27:04anonymous source on one side, a flat
27:06denial on the other. Even the critics
27:08weren't satisfied because the way the
27:10report framed it, the regret concerned
27:12saying it on television and never the
27:14claim itself. Last time on this channel,
27:17I walked you through what happened to
27:19the Queen's last corgis after Andrew
27:21moved out of Royal Lodge, and the whole
27:24answer was sitting in one photograph
27:26well away from the noise around it. This
27:28feels like the same lesson. One of you
27:30left a comment under that video saying
27:31you were tired of royal stories where
27:33nobody ever shows you the paper. Fair.
27:36The paper comes next. The page from the
27:3917th of May 2019 has a box for the
27:42child's father and the name written in
27:44that box is Harry's. It has another box
27:47for the informant, the person who walks
27:49in and gives the details to the
27:51register. And that name is Harry's as
27:53well. He went himself 11 days after his
27:56son was born. He sat across a desk from
27:58a register and answered the questions.
28:00And the copies that later went round the
28:02newspapers show what sits beside his
28:05name in the space where the form asked
28:07what the informant is to the child. One
28:09word, father. That one word answers the
28:11question the thumbnails keep asking.
28:13There's no DNA result about Archie's
28:15paternity because there has never been a
28:18DNA test. Nobody ordered one. Nobody
28:20refused one. Nobody has produced a lab
28:23report, a leak document, a clinic name,
28:26a date or swab in a bag. The only thing
28:29that exists on paper is the register of
28:31births. And the man who signed it and
28:33named himself as Archie's father was
28:36Prince Harry. Think about what that
28:37signature means in practice. In England,
28:40knowingly giving false information to a
28:42register for the register of births is a
28:45criminal offense. Harry sat in that
28:47chair under the same law that covers
28:49everybody else [music] and wrote his own
28:51name in the father's box and the word
28:53father beside it. Of all the people in
28:55this story, he is the only one who has
28:58ever put his name to a statement about
29:00Archie's father and he did it on a legal
29:03document. Even the harshest critic
29:06starts from there. She has pointed out
29:08that on the original certificate, Harry
29:10himself told the registar who gave birth
29:13to Archie at the Portland on the 6th of
29:16May. She says it depends how you read it
29:19that you can spin it one way or another.
29:21But every word of her complaint concerns
29:23the mother's details and the father's
29:25box never comes into it. And remember
29:27the sentence I asked you to keep. She
29:29would never imply that this is what
29:31happened. The irony that makes this
29:33whole thing so bitter is that this
29:35family knows exactly how a paternity
29:37rumor works. Because Harry grew up
29:39inside one. For years, the cheaper end
29:42of Fleet Street whispered that James
29:43Hwitt, the cavalry officer, Diana, later
29:46admitted on television that she had
29:49loved, was Harry's real father. She said
29:51it to Martin Basher on Panorama in
29:53November 1995 in front of more than 20
29:57million viewers. The same interview Lord
29:59Dyson's inquiry tore apart in May 2021.
30:02The rumor leaned on two things: a
30:04red-haired army officer and a public
30:07appetite for cruelty about Charles's
30:09younger boy. Around the time Harry
30:11turned 18, reporting at the time said
30:13palace officials had warned police about
30:15a plan to get hold of one of the young
30:17prince's hairs and sell it for a
30:19paternity test. Think about how strange
30:21that is. The only real DNA scheme
30:24anybody has ever uncovered in this
30:26family targeted Harry himself as a
30:28teenager. Diana never got to see the end
30:30of it. She died with that rumor still
30:32trailing behind her younger son. And she
30:35had spent years watching it follow him
30:37into school and into the papers. Harry
30:39finished it himself decades later with a
30:41date. In his memoir, he pointed out that
30:43his mother didn't meet Huitt until long
30:45after he was born. Harry arrived in
30:48September 1984. By Diana's own later
30:51account, she met Hwitt in 1986. Huitt
30:54himself has said in interviews that he
30:57isn't Harry's father. A rumor with a
30:59red-haired cavalry officer at the center
31:01of it and a calendar killed it. That's
31:04how these stories end. You don't need a
31:06swab. You need a record with a date on
31:08it. And in Archie's case, the record has
31:10been sitting in the register since May
31:122019. The next time a video tells you
31:14there's DNA proof about Archie and never
31:17shows you a single page, ask yourself
31:20what it's selling you. You've probably
31:22seen one of those videos. Did it show
31:24you anything at all? A document, a lab
31:26name, a date. Tell me in the comments,
31:28cuz I sat through a stack of them for
31:30this and didn't find one. And there's
31:32another date I've been holding back
31:34since the start, the 10th of July. And
31:36it answers the other half of that
31:38headline. Before we get there, though,
31:40look at the people in the middle of all
31:41this. Put the noise down for a minute
31:43and look at the little boy. No matter
31:45what you think about his parents, Archie
31:48didn't ask for a minute of this. He has
31:50grown up almost entirely out of sight. A
31:52birthday post showing the back of his
31:55head, a small hand on a garden swing.
31:57That's about all the public has seen
31:59across seven years. At the end of
32:01September, according to reports,
32:03photographers turned up around the edge
32:05of the children's new school and the
32:07family's own security reported them. The
32:10couple reportedly called it an
32:11unacceptable intrusion into their
32:14children's lives. And the report said
32:16the photographers came from the
32:18international press rather than the
32:20British papers. 29 years ago, standing
32:23in Westminster Abbey, Diana's brother
32:25called her the most hunted person of the
32:27modern age. Earl Spencer said it about
32:29his sister with her two boys in the same
32:31abbey listening. Harry was 12. Days
32:34earlier, he had walked behind her coffin
32:36through London with his brother, his
32:38father, and his grandfather. And in that
32:41same eulogy, his uncle promised that her
32:44blood family would carry on the loving
32:46way she had been raising those two boys.
32:49One of those boys is now a father of
32:51two, reading about long lenses at his
32:54children's school fence. You can
32:56understand why the word privacy sounds
32:58different coming from him than it does
32:59from you or me. He has said as much in
33:02writing. In October 2019, when Archie
33:06was 5 months old, Harry put out a long
33:08statement as Megan began legal action
33:11against the Mail on Sunday over a
33:13private letter. And one line in it
33:15stopped people in their tracks. I lost
33:18my mother, he wrote. And now I watch my
33:20wife falling victim to the same powerful
33:22forces. Megan won that case in the end.
33:25The line stayed with people longer than
33:26the verdict did. He kept going after the
33:29papers himself, too. In December 2023,
33:32the high court ruled that journalists at
33:34the mirror's publisher had hacked his
33:36phone and awarded him damages. In
33:39January 2022, the publisher of The Sun
33:42settled his case on the morning the
33:44trial was due to start with a full
33:46apology to him in writing. Whatever you
33:48think of Harry on the question of the
33:50press going after his family, the courts
33:52have taken his side more than once.
33:54People close to Harry say he's
33:56determined that Archie and Liet won't
33:58carry the weight he carried. The cameras
34:01and the duty and the pressure of being
34:03born into all this. That's a father's
34:05reason and it's a real one. The couple
34:07even named their foundation after the
34:09boy. Archwell, the charity they set up,
34:12takes its name from Archie. Harry isn't
34:15a passenger in this story either. He and
34:18Megan made these decisions together side
34:20by side. And on one point, the
34:22commentators on both sides, the friendly
34:24ones and the hostile ones, agree. The
34:26love those two have for their children,
34:28isn't in question. There's another
34:30grandfather in this story, Thomas
34:32Markle. Megan's father has never met
34:35Archie or Liliet. He has said so
34:37publicly over and over and asked in
34:40interview after interview for the chance
34:42to see them once. He's in his 80s now.
34:44He missed his daughter's wedding in May
34:462018. And on that day, Charles walked
34:49Megan the last stretch of the aisle at
34:51St. George's Chapel, a gesture people
34:54still remember. In one interview, Thomas
34:56Marco reportedly went as far as saying
34:58he feels for the king that the two of
35:01them are grandfathers in the same
35:02position, kept at a distance from the
35:05same children. Two grandfathers, both
35:08held at arms length, except that in
35:10July, one of them wasn't. On the 10th of
35:13July this year, Buckingham Palace
35:15confirmed that the king and queen Camila
35:17had welcomed Harry, Megan, Archie, and
35:19Liiled at H Highrove for a private
35:22family visit. ITV News reported it. CNN
35:25reported it in America. By most
35:27accounts, it was the first time in years
35:29that the king had seen both
35:31grandchildren together. Within hours,
35:33the story was on every royal news page
35:35in Britain. The breakfast shows on both
35:38sides of the Atlantic picked it up the
35:39next morning and the comment section
35:42split down the middle exactly the way
35:43you'd expect. Notice where the
35:45confirmation came from. The palace, the
35:47king's own people. Nobody forced them to
35:50say a word. They chose to. And think
35:53about the garden. Highrove is the house
35:55Diana lived in for most of her marriage.
35:58The place where Harry and his brother
35:59spent the weekends of their childhood.
36:01Charles has worked on that garden since
36:041980, the year before his wedding. Then
36:07look at the date. The 10th of July fell
36:099 days after the 1st of July, the day
36:11Diana would have turned 65. A
36:14grandfather opened the gate of that
36:15house to his son and his grandchildren
36:17in the same month as her birthday. Maybe
36:19that was a coincidence of diaries. It
36:21didn't.

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