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Prince Harry compares royal life to Jim Carrey film The Truman Show

Royal appeared in new interview on Dax Shepard’s podcast

Isobel Lewis
Thursday 13 May 2021 10:49 EDT
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Prince Harry compares royal life to The Truman Show

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Prince Harry has compared life as a royal to the 1998 film The Truman Show in a new interview.

Speaking to Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast, the Duke of Sussex, who stepped back from royal duties last year, discussed what it was like to have lived his entire life in the public eye.

Shepard made reference to the Oscar-nominated Jim Carrey film, in which the actor plays a man whose birth was televised and now lives his life on a giant TV set, unaware that he’s on a TV show watched by millions.

“You’re in the tiniest in-group of all time. There’s the whole country and then there’s you guys,” Shepard told Harry.

“You’re standing in one direction and they’re standing in another direction looking at you,” he continued, before asking Harry if he’d seen The Truman Show.

“Yep, yep,” the Duke replied. “A mix between The Truman Show and living in a zoo… I’m not the attraction.”

Shepard then suggested that Harry had been “cast into a movie without being asked”.

“I think the biggest issue for me was that being born into it you inherit the risk that comes with it, you inherit every element of it without choice,” the royal replied, adding that he felt like the UK media believed they had “ownership” over him.

Jim Carrey in The Truman Show
Jim Carrey in The Truman Show (Melinda Sue Gordon/Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock)

In March, Harry and his wife Meghan Markle took part in a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey where they discussed their decision to stop being senior royals.

Harry will collaborate with Winfrey again on a new TV series about mental health for Apple that is being released later this month.

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