Harry's Friend: Here's Why He Did It

JJ Chalmers emphasizes Harry's new life as a family man
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 11, 2020 12:00 PM CST
Updated Jan 11, 2020 1:30 PM CST
Harry's Friend: Here's Why He Did It
In this Tuesday, July 10, 2018 file photo Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, Meghan the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry stand on a balcony to watch a flypast of Royal Air Force aircraft pass over Buckingham Palace in London.   (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

A close friend of Prince Harry's says the headline-grabbing decision to step away from the royal family had one motivation: family. JJ Chalmers, who knows the Duke of Sussex from military service, defended Harry and Meghan Markle's plan for a royal departure on the British show The One Show, People reports. "He's less the captain in the army I knew, and he’s more a father that’s the first thing I ask him about," says Chalmers. "And I think the decision that he has made, at the forefront of that is to protect his family, because that’s the number one rule is to be a father and to be a husband."

And that's why the 35-year-old prince is seeking a new life? "I would say so, any husband wants to protect their wife and any father wants to protect their children," says the British TV presenter, per Us Weekly. "He is a very principled individual and so when he looks as how the media reacts and how social media talks about someone, he has to answer to his son one day when he begins to understand this and be able to look him in the face and say, 'I made the right decision and I did right by you.' And ultimately he grew up in the limelight and knows how it will end if this isn't handled correctly." That's a reference to Harry's mother, Princess Diana, who died in a 1997 car crash while fleeing the paparazzi. (So how will Harry and Meghan make a living?)

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