Prince Harry Says He ‘Slipped Into Depression’ After Moving to Canada

• Prince Harry says he “slipped into depression for about two weeks” soon after he, Meghan and baby Archie moved to Canada in late 2019.
• He told the story in a new MasterClass on grief, released Thursday, Oct. 8, with neuroscientist Mary-Frances O’Connor.
• He traces it back to the death of his mother, Princess Diana, when he was 12, and to years of running on adrenaline.

Prince Harry says the first weeks of his new life in Canada knocked him down. In a MasterClass released Thursday, Oct. 8, the Duke of Sussex, 42, said he “slipped into depression for about two weeks” days after he, Meghan and their son, Archie, arrived there in late 2019.

The class, Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss, is co-taught by Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, a grief neuroscientist and psychologist, and came out two days before World Mental Health Day, on Oct. 10.

What did Prince Harry say about Canada?

The family went to Vancouver Island in November 2019, during a six-week break from royal duties. In January 2020 he and Meghan announced they were stepping back as working royals, and by March they had moved to California.

Harry said the move was meant to give them room to think, and that the crash came almost immediately, within “two or three days.”

I actually slipped into depression for about two weeks and I felt like I couldn’t function without adrenaline.

Prince Harry, in Redefining Grief on MasterClass

“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,” he said. He described it as an “adrenaline crash,” something he had never felt before, once he was away from what he called a stressful environment.

He also described the years before the move, as a working royal in Britain. Putting on a dress shirt, he said, “the tightening of the collar literally felt like I was suffocating,” and he had panic attacks “just in the car on the way to work.”

His biggest fear at the time, he said, was people seeing him sweat.

Why does Prince Harry link it to Princess Diana?

Because, he says, the adrenaline started long before the Army. Diana died in a Paris car crash in 1997, when Harry was 12. He said he did not cry when he was told, cried only at her burial and then not again “for nearly two decades.”

For 15 to 20 years, he said, his answer to “Are you okay?” was “I’m fine.” He called it “numbness, emotional shutdown,” and said that for years he believed his mother would come back in disguise and take him and his brother, Prince William, away.

He joined the Army at 20 and served two tours in Afghanistan, which he called the “perfect distraction.” He said his post-traumatic stress was “not tied” to what he saw there; the war, he said, set off older traumas he had stored away since childhood.

What held him back from getting help, he said, was fear of losing the drive he had come to depend on, and with it his connection to his mother. “I felt disloyal and guilty for the possibility of being happy and joyful without her,” he said.

What changed it was realizing that “she just wanted me to be happy.” “That was a huge mental shift for me,” he said. “It freed me.”

What is Prince Harry’s MasterClass about?

It is a five-part class on living with loss of any kind, including death, divorce, illness, a career change or a move. O’Connor, author of The Grieving Brain and The Grieving Body, covers how grief affects the body, and Harry tells his own story.

The class is available only to MasterClass subscribers, through an annual membership. As part of the launch, MasterClass is supporting Scotty’s Little Soldiers, a British charity for children of fallen service members that Harry has backed for years, and Comfort Zone Camp, a U.S. bereavement camp for children.

Harry also shared a rule he lives by now: no more than 10 days away from Meghan and their children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5. Here is the trailer for the class.

The family moved back to Britain on Aug. 26, with a base outside London, while keeping their home in Montecito, California. They are not returning as working royals.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S.

More from Royals: why Harry and Meghan moved back to the U.K., what Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, said about King Charles and what is inside Meghan’s As Ever advent calendar.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: Prince Harry and Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor in Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss (MasterClass), Oct. 8, 2026, and the class trailer; MasterClass press release, Oct. 8, 2026; E! News (Brahmjot Kaur); Page Six (Eric Todisco); People; HOLA! USA (Daniel Neira); Clarín; The Office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Ontario skydive, Sept. 25, 2026; Washington, D.C., visit, August 2026; Australia visit, April 2026). Photos: Courtesy of MasterClass; The Office of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.