MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th February, 2021) Prince Harry said that the mental health impact of the "toxic" UK press played a part in his decision to step away from the royal family with his wife Meghan Markle.
The couple last week confirmed to Buckingham Palace that they were not returning to public duties as members of the Royal Family. The couple had announced they were stepping back from the royal duties in early 2020.
"It was a really difficult environment, as I think a lot of people saw. We all know what the British press can be like and it was destroying my mental health... this is toxic," Harry said in a televised appearance with UK talk show host James Corden.
In a candid interview atop an open-air bus, Harry maintained that he had not walked away from royal duties, although he did not elaborate on what that meant.
"It was stepping back rather than stepping down," he said.
The UK's news publishing landscape is effectively without regulation, and UK hyper-competitive tabloid newspapers are famous for their overt sensationalism.
Prince Harry's mother, the late Princess Diana, was constantly inundated by paparazzi, which some say may have contributed to her death in the 1997 traffic collision in Paris.
