The Duke of Sussex has branded the Queen Consort “the villain” and “dangerous”, as he spoke of bodies being “left in the street” during her image rehabilitation.

Harry, in an interview with US show CBS’s 60 Minutes, launched into his fiercest criticism yet of his stepmother.

The duke wrote in his memoir Spare that Camilla “sacrificed me on her personal PR altar”.

Commonwealth Day 2020
The royal family in 2020 (Phil Harris/Daily Mirror/PA)

He told interviewer Anderson Cooper: “She was the villain, she was a third person in the marriage, she needed to rehabilitate her image.”

He added: “The need for her to rehabilitate her image…that made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press.

“And there was open willingness on both sides to trade information and with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.”

The duke writes in his memoir how he and William begged the King not to marry Camilla, and he told Cooper: “We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought it would do more harm than good.”

In his UK interview with ITV on Sunday night, the duke, however, denied that he had been “scathing” about the Queen Consort in his autobiography.

Charles & Camilla greeting
The then Prince of Wales kissed long-term love Camilla Parker-Bowles on the cheek in 2001, four years before they wed (John Stillwell/PA)

Presenter Tom Bradby said: “I want to sort of just briefly talk about your stepmother and the press ‘cause you, you are pretty consistently scathing and suggest that you are…”

Harry replies “Scathing?…What, scathing towards?”

Bradby responds: “Well, as in you say that, ‘your interests were sacrificed on her PR altar’, to quote, and you seem to be specifically referencing that. Now her people might say, well, it’s not a crime to go to lunch with journalists.

Harry: “Well, I think in the book is very clear what happened.”

In an excerpt read from his memoir Harry says: “‘We support you’ we said, ‘We endorse Camilla’ we said. ‘Just please don’t marry her, just be together, Pa.’ He didn’t answer.

“But she answered. Straight away. Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game. A campaign aimed at marriage, and eventually the Crown, with Pa’s blessing we presumed.”

Camilla’s public image has changed dramatically over the years since she was cast as the third person in the marriage of the then-Prince and Princess of Wales due to her affair with Charles.

Royal visit to Ebony Horse Club
Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the then Duchess of Cornwall, during a visit to the Ebony Horse Club in Brixton, London (Heathcliff O’Malley/Daily Telegraph/PA)

In 1994, Charles had confessed to adultery in a TV interview with broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, but only after his marriage had “irretrievably broken down”.

The following year Diana made the revelation in the BBC Panorama documentary “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” a reference to Camilla.

After Charles and Camilla both divorced – and Diana died in l997 – the duchess’ emergence as the prince’s long-term partner was part of a carefully planned PR campaign masterminded by the heir to the throne’s spin doctor Mark Bolland.

Their first public appearance together was outside the Ritz hotel in London in 1999, dubbed Operation Ritz, where the mass of waiting photographers had been tipped off.

The former royal mistress, who wed Charles in 2005 and has spent more than 17 years as a member of the royal family carrying out charity work, was endorsed by the late Queen to be Queen Consort on the eve of Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in February 2022.