LOS ANGELES - Prince Harry said he decided to publish his memoirs to defend himself against years of tabloid spin, as British and American television aired his first interviews on the book's explosive revelations.
"Thirty-eight years. 38 years of having my story told by so many different people with intentional spin and distortion felt like a good time to own my story and be able to tell it for myself," he told British channel ITV.
The Duke of Sussex's ghost-written book "Spare" officially launches Tuesday, but its contents were widely leaked after it mistakenly went on sale early in Spain.
Fallout from the book's revelations has cast doubt on Harry's future in the royal family.
READ: Prince Harry to spill on scandalous memoirs in TV interviews
The book includes a claim that his brother Prince William, the heir to the throne, physically attacked him as they rowed about his wife Meghan.
It also gives an account of how he lost his virginity; an admission of drug use; and a claim he killed 25 people while serving in Afghanistan with the British military.
In the interview, Harry focused anger on the British media, which he called "the antagonist".
He accused royals of being "complicit" in planting hostile stories in newspapers, after Meghan said the coverage made her feel suicidal.
"Certainly millions of words have been dedicated to trying to trash my wife and myself," Harry said.
"At that time I didn't fully understand how much - or how complicit the family were in that pain and suffering that was happening to my wife."
British media reported Sunday that the book had hurt William and the boys' father, King Charles III, but the monarch wanted to reconcile with his son. The palace has not issued any official reaction.
The ITV programme "Harry: The Interview" featured the prince reading extracts from the audiobook of his memoirs.
In a separate interview aired on CBS in America on Sunday evening, Harry said he was "probably bigoted" before he met Meghan, who is mixed-race.
The prince also criticised Charles's second wife and now queen consort in the book.
He wrote that after Diana's death, Camilla "began playing the long game: a campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the crown".
Details appeared in media of private conversations that "could only have been leaked" by Camilla, Harry alleged.
Harry said in the CBS interview that he and William were not currently speaking and he hadn't talked to his father "for quite a while."
The Sunday Times earlier quoted an unnamed friend of the brothers as saying William "won't retaliate" over the book, but "he's anxious and he's sad".
The Sunday Telegraph broadsheet quoted sources close to Charles as saying the king saw reconciliation with Harry as the "only way out of this mess".