PRINCE HARRY DROPS HINTS ABOUT THE FUTURE AND REVEALS DREAM SUBJECT TO TEACH IN CANDID MASTERCLASS INTERVIEW
In a newly unveiled MasterClass interview examining the neurobiology of grief and trauma, Prince Harry offered unexpected personal insights into both his lifelong emotional battles and his lighter aspirations, revealing that his dream subject to teach would be helicopter flight instruction.
A Passion for Aviation Grounded in Military Service
During a rapid-fire Q&A segment published on social media alongside the program, the 42-year-old Duke of Sussex singled out piloting helicopters as the class he would most love to lead. The choice reflects Harry’s deep-seated military background: he earned his provisional flying wings in 2010 operating Firefly and Squirrel aircraft before advancing to the British Army’s Apache attack helicopters, subsequently serving as a co-pilot gunner across two tours of duty in Afghanistan. In the same exchange, when asked how he would introduce himself to a stranger, he opted for the unpretentious moniker: “Hi, I’m Harry.”
The ‘Adrenaline Crash’ and Sudden Canadian Depression
The core MasterClass discussion, filmed in California with grief neuroscientist Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, detailed the acute physiological toll of leaving royal life. Harry disclosed that upon arriving on Vancouver Island with Meghan Markle and infant son Archie in late 2019, he suffered a sudden two-week bout of depression triggered by an abrupt withdrawal from high-stress royal demands.
Harry explained:
“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. 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. I actually slipped into depression for about two weeks, and I felt like I couldn’t function without adrenaline.”
Unresolved Trauma and Anxiety Manifestations
The Duke traced this dependence back to the unresolved grief following the tragic death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, when he was just 12. For nearly two decades, he relied on emotional shutdown and adrenaline as coping mechanisms, using his enlistment in the armed forces as an all-consuming distraction from grief.
The suppressed trauma ultimately manifested physically after his second tour in Afghanistan ended in 2013.
“The things that I saw, the things I experienced, appeared to be a trigger for other traumas that had stored themselves within me,” Harry recalled. “I started to realise that I probably had become seriously depleted when just putting a simple dress shirt on — the tightening of the collar — literally felt like I was suffocating, and I would be experiencing panic attacks just in the car on the way to work. And that’s when I realised, ‘Okay, there’s something bigger, there’s something else that you need to look into here.’”