Prince Harry Recalls How Baby Prince Archie Could ‘Feel’ His Stress

Meredith KileTue, October 20, 2026 at 6:28 PM UTC

0

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and Prince Archie meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Thandeka Tutu-Gxashe at the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation during their royal tour of South Africa on Sept. 25, 2019Credit: Pool/Samir Hussein/WireImageThe Duke of Sussex opened up in a new interview about how kids can “pick up” on their parents’ feelings -

Prince Harry sat down for a new interview with GQ

The Duke of Sussex recalled that before stepping back from royal life, his infant son could sense his “stress”

“Maybe we don’t know how we’re feeling. Your kids will be the first people to tell you because they won’t want to hang out with you,” Harry said

Prince Harry is looking back on how he realized his children could pick up on his feelings.

In a newly released sit-down with GQ’s Zach Baron, filmed in September during Harry’s trip to New York City, the Duke of Sussex opened up for the first time about how he and Meghan Markle recently decided to move their family — including their children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5 — back to Britain.

While speaking about his connection with his late mother, Princess Diana, who died when he was just 12, Prince Harry recalled times shortly after their son’s birth but before he and Meghan stepped back from their royal roles, when they were living at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.

“There’s an energetic piece to this, which I never appreciated, never realized,” Harry told Baron. “When Archie was born, and I had to go back into London and do the 40-minute drive in and out of London, I was so stressed with everything that was happening and everything that I was having to deal with.”

“I would come back, and I would literally take Archie off of Meghan. And if I was still stressed, he would feel it immediately,” Harry shared.

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and Prince Archie meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his daughter Thandeka Tutu-Gxashe at the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation during their royal tour of South Africa on Sept. 25, 2019Credit: Toby Melville/Samir Hussein/WireImage

“I got into this habit of, right, okay, now I’m gonna use this 40-minute drive to be able to try and just get [calm],” he explained, adding that he would see if it worked. “I go, and I hold him, and he leans into me. I’m like, ‘Whoa, okay. So the energy is a real thing.’ ”

“I think as a parent, we’ve just got to be so conscious about what we carry that they can pick up,” he continued. “That we know how we’re feeling, and maybe we don’t know how we’re feeling. Your kids will be the first people to tell you because they won’t want to hang out with you.”

He added, “It’s not always gonna be possible, and you shouldn’t really put that on yourself, but where it is possible, where you can try to heal yourself from the past — even heal yourself from the last week — for their sake, you should absolutely do that.”

Prince Harry and Meghan spent the end of 2019 in Canada with Archie, where Harry has said he experienced an “adrenaline crash” after years of living in the “stressful environment” of the royal spotlight.

“Being in Canada, away from the stressful environment where presumably my body was just pumped full of adrenaline, within two or three days, I experienced this adrenaline crash, something that I’d never experienced before,” Harry said in his MasterClass episode, titled Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss.

“It was as if I needed stress in order to get the adrenaline to make my brain function because I became useless around the house,” he continued. “I actually slipped into depression for about two weeks, and I felt like I couldn’t function without adrenaline.”

Advertisement

Prince Harry departs The Royal Courts of Justice in London on Jan. 21, 2026Credit: Peter Nicholls/Getty

He realized that his tightly wound emotions were a result of suppressing the grief he had over the death of his mother.

“I’d spent so long emotionally numb, to a large extent, because I felt disloyal and guilty for the possibility of being happy and joyful without her,” he shares. “I felt like I had to be sad and I had to be emotionally numb in order to prove to her that I missed her.”

But Prince Harry says he eventually came to a realization that changed his outlook.

“But the reality is, what I discovered was actually that she just wanted me to be happy. And that was a huge mental shift for me. It freed me, and it gave me a whole different outlook on life.”

With his return to the U.K., Harry said he hopes to mend the rift in the royal family. During their chat, Baron brought up Harry’s “complicated relationship” with his father, King Charles, and brother, Prince William, asking, “Is that something that you grieve?”

“Yes, of course,” Prince Harry answered, adding that family rifts are a “massively relatable issue for so many people.”

While there has been communication between King Charles, 77, and Prince Harry since the Sussexes’ move back to the U.K., there has reportedly been no direct contact between Harry and Prince William, 44.

“William’s view is clear — any relationship his father has with Harry or the Sussexes as a family is entirely up to him,” royal author Russell Myers exclusively told PEOPLE in a recent cover story. “But looking toward the future, he will have no relationship with them, in a working or private capacity whatsoever.”

Prince William; King Charles III, Prince HarryCredit: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty; Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty; Neil Mockford/Getty

Can’t get enough of PEOPLE’s Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!

Prince Harry said he remains hopeful.

“Look, scars stick around forever, but what your perception is and what your mindset is to those things that have happened, certainly letting go of the past, that’s something that I would encourage everybody to do,” he said in his GQ interview. “If there’s certain things from the past that are still affecting your everyday, that’s harder to let go of. But yeah, for me, there’s enough drama in the world and enough drama in people’s lives than to continue with issues with family.”

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”