Prince Harry told competitors in his Invictus Games tournament that if “you feel like you might want to cry, then just f****** cry,” in a speech shown in his new Netflix documentary.
The Duke of Sussex sought to inspire members of the U.K. team as they prepared for the 2020 games, held in The Hague, Netherlands, two years late in 2022.
In Netflix docu-series Heart of Invictus, released on August 30, Harry can be seen using colorful language to urge the military veterans to let their emotions show.
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The prince said: “Thank you for putting so much into this. You did it every day wearing uniform and then for one reason or another that uniform had to be hung up but that service that runs in your blood, in our blood, that never leaves the body. It’s there.
“So when you’re out there kicking ass, trying to win a medal or just having fun and making your family incredibly proud, when you feel that feeling in your throat and you feel like you might want to cry, then just f****** cry, okay. I mean that.”
The prince’s words got a big round of applause from competitors watching him over video link, with one saying “thank you.”
Much of the five-part series focuses on the Ukrainian team’s preparations against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion, in February 2022, just months before the games that April.
There are interviews with U.S. and U.K. competitors too and Harry revealed how he at one stage did not believe the games would happen due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said: “After so many delays because of the global pandemic, with all the craziness that’s happening in the world, what’s happening in Ukraine, to be here now in the games with all the people who have been patiently waiting since 2020—its a relief to be honest.
“We didn’t think it would ever happen and it’s been a real emotional rollercoaster for every single person.”
Harry also delved into his childhood trauma, describing how serving on the front line brought his grief over the death of his mother Princess Diana back to the surface.
He said: “My tour of Afghanistan in 2012, flying Apaches, somewhere after that there was an unraveling and the trigger to me was actually returning from Afghanistan and the stuff that was coming up was from 1997 from the age of 12.
“Losing my mum at such a young age, the trauma that I had I was never really aware of. It was never discussed, I didn’t really talk about it and I suppressed it like most youngsters would have done, but when it all came fizzing out, I was bouncing off the walls.
“Like, ‘what is going on here? I’m now feeling everything as opposed to being numb.’ The biggest struggle for me was no one around me really could help.
“I didn’t have that support structure, that network or that expert advice to identify what was actually going on with me.
“Unfortunately, like most of us, the first time you really consider therapy is when you’re lying on the floor in the fetal position, probably wishing that you dealt with some of this stuff previously. And that’s what I really want to change.”
The show was released just less than two weeks before the 2023 Invictus Games begins in Dusseldorf, Germany, in September.
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
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