ITV’s Tom Bradby on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle interview

Tom Bradby today opened up about his bombshell interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, revealing he ‘found a couple that seemed bruised and vulnerable’. 

The ITV News at Ten Anchor told Good Morning America that he ‘had a couple of private heart to hearts’ with Prince Harry ahead of filming the documentary. 

In Sunday night’s ITV programme ‘Harry & Meghan: An African Journey’, Meghan revealed she was ‘existing not living’ while her husband spoke out about his struggles with mental health.

Bradby told GMA today he ‘knew that everything wasn’t entirely rosy behind the scenes’ but tried to tell their story ‘as empathetically as I could.’

He added: ‘We had a couple of private heart to hearts before we did the interview and I said, “Let’s just go out and tell the truth as you see it.”

‘The thing about Harry is, whether in private or in public, if you ask him an honest question he’ll give you an honest answer, for better or worse.’

During the documentary aired on ITV on Sunday night, Prince Harry (pictured above) revealed his feelings about his royal duties 

Meghan Markle was interviewed by Tom Bradby (pictured) for the ITV documentary

Harry and Meghan’s interviews, which aired on Sunday night and have since been viewed tens of millions of times on Twitter alone, triggered huge public debate about their roles in the Royal Family. 

The couple opened up about the struggling to cope with intense scrutiny and Harry admitted that he and his brother, who were once inseparable, now have their ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’.

Today Bradby told American viewers, ‘I just told the story that was in front of me’.

He said he saw the Duke and Duchess before joining them in Africa, to discuss the show. 

He said: ‘We had a pretty long chat, and I speak to Harry relatively often and have done over the years. I knew things weren’t entirely brilliant behind the scenes, [but] it built as the tour went on. I was just observing.

‘As time wore on, I began to really get a sense of where he was at.  

‘I went intending to make a documentary that was always going to be about their work in Africa and then a little about where they are at in life.

‘I knew that everything wasn’t entirely rosy behind the scenes. But all the same I had intended to turn up doing a more conventional, journalistic job, maybe beforehand I told them I was going to have to put some pretty pointed questions [to them]. 

‘The reality I found was just a couple that seemed a bit bruised and vulnerable – with mental health and all the rest of it you have to be careful what words you use – that was the story I found and it seemed the right journalistic thing to do to try and tell that story as empathetically as I could.’

Meghan opened about her struggles with the British Press in an hour-long ITV documentary with Tom Bradby and said friends had warned her over the difficulties she would face as a royal

Both Prince Harry and his wife discussed the troubles that they have faced in the public eye since their wedding and becoming parents to baby son Archie in the last two years

Asked what he hopes will come of the documentary, Bradby says he ‘hopes everyone will take a deep breath.’

He said: ‘I kind of sense that in the end things weren’t going in a very good direction here.

‘If this documentary has an outcome I do hope that it’s that everyone – including them – takes a really deep breath and maybe thinks pretty hard about how the future may play out.’

Asked about the different approaches taken by Harry and his brother, he added: ‘It’s quite interesting – William is taking a more traditional approach. 

‘He has to – he’s going to be King, he can’t afford to alienate any constituency. Harry and Meghan have just decided to play things very differently. ‘