I can’t stop laughing about how Prince Harry changed the narratives over there on Salty White Folk Isle. For months – years, even – those people claimed that Meghan pulled all the strings, that Meghan controlled Harry, that Harry would come back to them some day when he got out of Meghan’s all-powerful witchery. Harry torpedoed all of those talking points in The Me You Can’t See. It’s his baby, his project, and his voice completely. I was really impressed with the series and the issues which were tackled. I also appreciated the fact that no one put a bow on anything. Therapy helps, but sometimes therapy isn’t enough. People have problems and they’re messy and broken and it is what it is. The final episode wasn’t “and now everyone is better!” The message was: work on your sh-t, be honest, be mindful of your mental health and therapy helps. So… Prince Harry and Oprah are going to do a “companion town hall” which will appear on AppleTV this Friday:
Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey are continuing the conversation. After debuting The Me You Can’t See docuseries about mental health on Apple TV+ last week, the duo is set to release a companion episode: a town hall format discussion titled The Me You Can’t See: A Path Forward.
Premiering Friday, May 28, for free on Apple TV+, A Path Forward reunites Oprah, 67, and Harry, 36, with advisors and participants from the multi-part docuseries for a wide-ranging conversation about mental health and where to go from here. Glenn Close, Zak Williams, Ambar Martinez and more guests offer more insight into their stories, plus experts will share guidance for continuing the global conversation on the subject.
In The Me You Can’t See, Harry — who is dad to 2-year-old son Archie with wife Meghan Markle, 39, and is expecting a baby girl this summer — opens up about experiencing panic attacks, starting therapy, and processing his mother Princess Diana’s death in deeply honest conversations with Oprah.
The docuseries — which quickly became the No. 1 watched program worldwide on Apple TV+ following its May 21 debut — also features inspiring stories from Williams, Close, Lady Gaga, and Oprah herself.
I’m proud of the “most watched” numbers too, but streaming services are pretty tricky about their company numbers, so it’s not like we have the data to sift through and compare and contrast with other shows. Still, I bet AppleTV executives are beyond pleased with the series, and they probably gave Harry and Oprah a blank check to do whatever they wanted beyond the five-part series. The town hall sounds like a great event and I imagine that there are some high-level conversations about possibly getting Harry and Oprah to produce a second series. The Me You Can’t See 2! I would watch it!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, AppleTV.
This is SO great for the field of mental health. Let’s hope treatment becomes more accessible. We are many steps away from that, but this is a good start. And it goes without saying, very brave for both of them to share their stories in so much detail. It has helped me process some of my own trauma.
I loved this. Often MH and trauma are hidden or told in an utterly false narrative. I’ve recommended this programme to clients
We work collaboratively toward their self assessed goals, they move and it isn’t linear or easy.
It takes time and returns often over a lifespan.
Money doesn’t necessarily improve it – access to decent MH care can sometimes come from vastly experienced community practitioners and not Harley Street MDs. This is also a myth that could be cleared up.
Some of the best EMDR I’ve witnessed has come from those practitioners supporting those facing trauma post sexual violence. (Largely for free – when they could be earning ££££ in private practice)
I know there are a variety of support groups out there and community practitioners, and I appreciate your point. But inpatient treatment and individual therapy are still very inaccessible to most. Funding for housing with mental health services (whatever you want to call it – a psychiatric hospital, supportive housing, etc.) is woefully inadequate, at least in the states. Few middle class people can afford prolonged individual therapy at $80+ per session. Inpatient rehab and recovery services are extremely limited. Even veterans have limited access to psychiatric care, short of being assigned a social worker at the VA. People are self-medicating. I respectfully, but totally disagree with you, that money “doesn’t necessarily” improve it.
There is presently no consolidated/organized federal mental health infrastructure, and almost no holistic wrap around services that are community-based and offer long-term options. We need billions of dollars to move the needle on mental health in the US, which sounds like a lot but is a blip in the federal budget. It’s simply not a priority, until more people speak out and advocate on its behalf.
@Ronaldinhio
Would you mind posting links to some of the EMDR services you mention? I understand that there is no professional vouching possible without knowing the patient, but I’d love some recommendations (even with a disclaimer).
Also any thoughts/links about ART (Accelerated Resolution Therapy) etc would be very welcome. Thanks in advance!
The differences between the 2 brothers are startling. One is taking tax payer funded vacation “work” trips to point at sheep.
The other is working with impressive people to discuss mental health & the stigma regarding it.
I don’t know how William and Kate don’t get embarrassed that tax payers are funding their luxurious lifestyle, esp. during Covid-19.
In maybe 10 years people will look at all this and say: “what do william and kate actually do? All they’ve done has been not effective so far”. And it will be a problem and meghan and harry are far far away.
I was asking someone the same question. Why does pointing at sheep and a wedding anniversary vacation have to be tax payer funded. They are both unemployed but extremely rich. Why can’t these 2 pay for themselves?
@HMM: well i think that the idea is that royals visit a charity to shes light on said charity and hopefully that will result i to donations from the public. Except that whole concept goes down the drain when the press pack who’s invited to cover the visit only focusses on what kate wears.
It just makes me laugh how William was like “I couldn’t get celebrities to work with me on mental health” and Harry produced a show with Oprah about mental health that featured Lady Gaga and Glenn Close.
Look forward to the town hall
It says a lot about William that he didn’t consider that maybe those celebrities just didn’t want to work with HIM. IIRC he tried to play it as the celebs were too image-conscious to work with something related to mental health. Which never made sense to me because celebs, even British ones, had already been aligning themselves with the topic before he jumped on the bandwagon.
Maybe it’s that those celebrities aren’t stupid and could see that there was no “there” there as far as having a plan on how to best tackle this highly sensitive topic. I’m quite sure he didn’t think past getting a few big names to show up alongside his.
What i loved most about this whole series is that they didn’t pussyfoot around it. Like, kaiser pointed out, its wasn’t get therapy and everybody is healed. No it was “mental health is a work in progress and you will have to keep working on it”. I love that, because sometimes when you’ve had a better period and then fall back, you can think to yourself “why am i like this? Why can’t i just be normal? Why is it always 1 step forward, 2 steps back?”
Totally. And also how gruesome and painful trauma can be, it’s something that requires constant attention as a part of overall wellbeing. We need a kinder, more holistic, and healed society. Some of it was triggering for me, I admit.
When i watched i felt for everyone but Inreally felt for Ginny! The poor girl. I will never make a joke about OCD again. She was completely consumed by it to the point where she didn’t even feel like living anymore.
And i ugly cried at Fawzi’s part.
Ginny’s segment was really hard for me to watch, my SIL has OCD and it manifests very similarly to Ginny’s – fear of germs (the past year has been very hard on her) and she has some other anxieties as well (for example she’s convinced that someone is going to kidnap her daughters or attack her.) She had a really bad time about 8 years ago that involved 90 minute showers, washing her hands to the count of 100 multiple times throughout the day (her hands were raw and chapped). We can tell now when she is starting to spiral downward because her hands start to look that way again. It really is a chronic illness that takes constant management.
I’m only halfway through the second episode – it’s excellent but it’s taking me some time to process it as I work through it. I do appreciate the raw honesty in it – these people aren’t wrapping it up prettily, it’s not “talk to someone and you’ll be better” (which seems to be the Cambridges talking point) – its “talk to someone and it may help but you may still struggle because talking isnt always enough but it can be a good starting point.” and I like how Harry keeps mentioning that he’s been in therapy for four years and is still grappling with his issues and his past. It’s not an overnight fix.
I admit that I am surprised it’s been such a hit, just because of the subject matter, but I guess when you have names like Oprah, Harry, Glenn Close, Lady Gaga etc attached it shouldn’t be a surprise. I’m sure Netflix and Spotify are rubbing their hands in glee, so to speak.
Therapy is like an onion. You absorb one Layer and find a whole other layer of stuff that needs to be processed. Good on them for pointing this out and not glossing over it.
Before he left the family, I thought mental health was a cause they just dabbled in occasionally around mental health awareness month. After Sussexit, he has come out as a real and passionate advocate on the issue. His decision to open up was a great choice, especially the onscreen therapy part.
I think harry was always passionate about it but within the confining of the institution he didn’t know how to effectively campaign for it. I also think that mental health got a whole new importance to him once he saw what his wife went through.
What was really eye catching numbers for me is that according to Apple the launch of the series drew 25% new viewers to the service and a more than 40% increase in average weekend viewership in the UK. That’s crazy! You’re 100% right that streaming services popularity charts are messy but for a streaming service to show a 25% increase in new subscriptions directly after a new show airs is really hard to argue with and honestly very rare. Especially for a service that is literally auto downloaded to 100s of millions of phones worldwide; 100s of millons of people already had this app but this series launching pushed a significant amount of them to sign up for an account. I dont have an iphone but the app was on my smartTV already and i signed up for the free trial last Friday myself.
Harry really won. As did Apple. Really happy as well that this follow up town hall will be available for free and that Ambar, whose story really touched me and made me rethink how i thought about schizophrenia, is participating.
Apple is also currently offering free one-year subscriptions to Apple TV, definitely with purchase of a new iPhone (me), and possibly also with new iPads, so that may skew new subscription numbers a bit. Though I have one friend who bought a new phone a few weeks back, didn’t bother with signing up because he didn’t see anything ‘worthwhile’, but will do so now in order to see this program (and Ted Lasso!).
I’m also wondering how many of the new subscriptions are people who just signed up for the 7 day trial and will cancel it? But if so that’s on Apple, H&M did their job in getting people onto the platform, so Apple needs to make them stay.
We loved Ted Lasso, thought See was pretty good but kind of weird lol, and currently we are obsessed with Mythic Quest. Their pandemic episode actually made me a little teary-eyed, it just reminded me so much of what the past year was like. Next up I want to watch Mosquito Coast and Morning Show (we watched the first episode but that was it.) Their original programming really is excellent.
For all mankind is also really really good. It combines space, history, and kinda sci-fi. Basically the perfect show for my dad. We are making our way through the 2nd season and watch an episode each time we visit. That and Ted Lasso have really been two of my favorite shows this year.
For anyone that has Disney+, and is interested in dance – I just watched the series, On Pointe, and would really recommend it. It’s about the children and young adult divisions of the School of American Ballet, told mostly via interviews with the children. Also shows what’s behind the casting, rehearsal, and performance of the big Xmas Nutcracker show at Lincoln Center in 2019. Interesting too to see the diversity they’re trying to bring in. All four of the primary child cast members for that show (pairs switch off for performances) have at least one parent who’s not Caucasian.
Turns out, it’s a Ron Howard production, though he’s not the director.
It’s a really good series and it goes beyond what Harry used to do when he was a working royal. I think that’s because he wasn’t allowed to be totally honest about his issues and he was forbidden from talking about mental illness by the Palace. I’ve come to realise that mental health was really his passion but in order to get permission do it he had to include William and Kate and was restricted in what he could talk about.
I hope he is getting paid for this as Apple/production will be making profit off of it. This is not volunteer work. Practically as he gets older there may be less money made/ fewer opportunities available / who knows what the future holds and he should make hay while the sun shines. Basically advice I give everyone.
I don’t know how something like that works, but I’m sure he got paid or they get paid based on the streams or whatever. The money might go to Archewell, might go to him, but i’m sure he’s getting paid.
Shutter Island melting down as we speak. Lol. I knew the follow-up town hall was coming cuz that’s how Oprah rolls. We’re about solutions and big things only. We love to see it.
For me, the question is whether Harry and Oprah’s collaboration will raise expectations for everybody else dabbling in the field. It makes “raising awareness by playing ping pong in an expensive outfit” look pretty trivial.
Just normalizing the word “trauma” in relation to mental health is a game changer, as is openly discussing therapy. I’ve not heard either of the Cambridges give more than some very basic talking points about mental health, and I think most people will associate the topic more with Harry going forward. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing – the more effective advocates, the better- but I wonder if the Cambridges will decide to pivot back to vaguely saving the environment/ helping the children as safer ground.
Harry continues his mother’s legacy through this work. His mother brought attention to AIDS and to land mines worldwide. She demonstrated how a global public platform like the royals could be used for good, and to effect positive change. Harry has now done the same thing for mental health. The line of succession from Diana to Harry is beautiful to see. Harry’s the royal who left royal life in order to do work that has had a global impact. What does that say about the value of royal work?
It’s also a tough act to follow for the Cambridges. I guess we’ll have to wait for their next YouTube video. Here’s a suggested title: “Oh look, a sheep!”
Description: their Royal highnesses stop by Old Macdonald’s Farm to celebrate mental health for barnyard animals. Catherine laughs uproariously as a sheep wanders into the vicinity. Then they went home.
I’m sure the narrative will switch to “Oprah is manipulating Harry!” Then they’ll try to go after Oprah (and Apple) like they did Gayle King. I suggest they best not try to do that.
Ophra will roll them and I’m here for it