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Reality star Judge Judy has weighed in on the Prince Harry and Meghan Markle drama which has ensued since the prince's memoirs were leaked last week, followed by a number of bombshell TV interviews he has undertaken to promote it.
Judith Sheindlin appeared on British morning show Good Morning Britain in a pre-recorded interview on Tuesday, the same day that Harry's memoir Spare had its global release.
The book's content was leaked last week and on Sunday, Harry undertook two lengthy interviews with 60 Minutes in the U.S. and ITV in the U.K. In these he made a number of bombshell claims including that Prince William attacked him during a 2019 row, that his stepmother Queen Camilla planted stories about him in the press and that he was not currently speaking to his brother or father, King Charles.
Though Sheindlin would not be drawn to comment on Harry and Meghan explicitly or their numerous royal revelations made in books, interviews, documentaries and podcasts, she said that if her grandchildren ever behaved in a similar way she would be "furious."
"[I] would think that that child or grandchild was a selfish, spoiled, ungrateful one," she stated.
"That's what I would feel and be really hurt. I think anybody with a brain would see that."
"It's disingenuous, it's biting the hand that fed you," she continued. "It's unseemly."
The star's apparent frustration with the Sussexes' public airing of family dramas appears to be echoed among Brits as new data shows Harry's popularity in the country is at an all-time low.
Polling conducted by YouGov, after key stories from Spare were leaked in the U.S. by Page Six and The Guardian in the U.K, shows that Harry is now viewed negatively by two thirds of the country (64 percent). This is an increase of five percent in just a month.
Harry is viewed positively by just 26 percent of Brits, the lowest number it has been since YouGov began compiling data on the royal.
As well as a number of revelations about his family members, Harry has also included a range of deeply personal and intimate anecdotes from the humorous account of his frostbitten "todger" at Prince William's wedding, to the more serious references to his teenage drug-taking.
On his decision to include the drug details in his book, Harry told ITV's Tom Bradby that he considered it "important to acknowledge," and told Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes that his use of drugs came from his desire to feel different after his mother's death.
"It was obvious to us as kids the British press' part in our mother's misery and I had a lot of anger inside of me that luckily, I never expressed to anybody," he said. "But I resorted to drinking heavily. Because I wanted to numb the feeling, or I wanted to distract myself from how...whatever I was thinking. And I would, you know, resort to drugs as well."
He also told Cooper of his experimentation with psychedelics—such as Ayahuasca, psilocybin, mushrooms—adding that he "would never recommend people to do this recreationally. But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine.
"For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that—that my mother, that I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy."
The prince is scheduled to appear on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday evening in the latest of his promotional media appearances.
Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and Judy Sheindlin for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more