5 of the most surprising moments from Prince Harry's first sit-down interview ahead of his memoir release

Prince Harry's first interview to promote his memoir, "Spare," aired on the UK network ITV on Sunday.

During the interview, filmed at his home in Montecito, California, Harry spoke candidly with journalist Tom Bradby about the book's contents, including his mother Princess Diana's death, the rift with his brother, Prince William, his relationship with King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort, and his and Meghan's step back from royal life.

"Spare" is set to be released worldwide on Tuesday, though leaks from the Spanish-language version of the book began to surface on Thursday after it accidentally went on sale early in Spain.

Representatives for Buckingham Palace and the Duke of Sussex did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment regarding the ITV interview.

Harry's mother, Princess Diana, died from injuries sustained in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. Harry was 12 years old when she died.

Speaking in the ITV interview, Harry said Diana had been chased by paparazzi before the crash, and that photographers did nothing to help her, instead choosing to take photos of her after the accident.

In an excerpt from the audiobook version of "Spare," which was shared in the ITV interview, Harry said he requested to be driven in a car through the same tunnel where Diana's crash occurred at the same speed.

"Quietly, I said, 'Is that all of it?' It's nothing, just a straight tunnel. I almost imagined the tunnel as some treacherous passageway, inherently dangerous. It was just a short, simple, no-frills tunnel. No reason anyone should die inside it," Harry wrote.

Harry didn't specify what age he was when he was driven through the tunnel, but he said in the ITV interview that he was old enough to drive at the time.

"Everyone knows where they were and what they were doing the night my mother died," he said.

"I cried once at the burial and, you know, I go into detail about how strange it was," Harry said in the ITV interview.

"Actually there was some guilt that I felt, and I think William felt as well, by walking around the outside of Kensington Palace," he added. "There were 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we were shaking people's hands, smiling."

In an excerpt from the audiobook shared in the ITV interview, Harry said that Camilla leaked stories about her private conversations with Prince William.

"Stories began to appear everywhere, in all the papers, about her private conversation with William, stories that contained pinpoint accurate details, none of it which had come from Willy, of course. They could only have been leaked by the one other person present," Harry said in the audiobook excerpt.

Later in the interview, Harry said that he and Prince William had asked Charles not to marry Camilla.

"William and I wanted our father to be happy and he seemed to be very, very happy with her," Harry said. "We asked him not to get married. He chose to and that's his decision. But the two of them were and remain very happy together."

Harry told Bradby that he had to ask his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, for permission to keep his beard for his royal wedding to Meghan Markle in 2018. He said it was important for him to keep it, as it felt like a "shield."

He added that William found it difficult to accept that Harry was allowed to keep his beard, when he had previously been instructed to shave his.

Speaking in their interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, the Sussexes said that unnamed members of the royal family had "concerns and conversations" about what their son Archie's skin tone would look like before his birth. Harry and Meghan did not confirm which members of the royal family had the conversation.

In a statement released on behalf of the Queen at the time, a palace spokesperson said that the issues of race were "concerning" and that although recollections varied, it would "be addressed by the family privately."

Speaking in the ITV interview, Harry said that he believed the royals who made the comments weren't racist, but rather displayed unconscious bias.

"But once it's been acknowledged and pointed out to you as an individual or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you then have an opportunity to learn and grow from that, in order so that you are part of the solution instead of part of the problem," he said.