Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry have teamed up for the new Apple TV+ docuseries “The Me You Can’t See” which features in-depth discussions about mental health, including that of the Duke of Sussex.
Dawn Porter, one of the co-directors and producers of the series, tells ET Canada it was Meghan Markle who first recognized Prince Harry’s need for therapy.
In his own words in the series, Prince Harry says, “I quickly established that if this relationship was gonna work, that I was gonna have to deal with my past. Because there was anger there. And it wasn’t anger at her, it was just anger. And she recognized it, she saw it.”
For Porter, having the royal open up in front of the camera was a “privilege” to witness.
“As a film director, anytime someone opens up to you, you realize it really is a privilege and it really is something — it means that people trust you,” she says, adding that although a lot of his story is public knowledge, “putting it all together that way and being part of an intimate conversation with him, we realized how unique and special that was.”
But Prince Harry isn’t the only famous face opening up in the series. Lady Gaga, Glenn Close, and DeMar DeRozan also get candid in “The Me You Can’t See”. Gaga talks about being raped at age 19 and suffering from PTSD and self-harm as a result.
“We’re asking people sometimes to share, to relive their worst moments. And she did not shy away from doing that,” Porter says of Gaga. “That’s why our title is so important: ‘The Me You Can’t See’. We see the perfection of Lady Gaga, at the top of her performance career — at the pinnacle, winning an Oscar. And yet at home, she was really, really struggling with depression and anxiety, and PTSD.”
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Porter says the crux of the series are the hidden traumas and mental health issues people of all genders, socio-economic backgrounds, cultures, and race all face.
“At the core, we are all so much more alike than we are different,” she says. “Every single person in the world has experienced some form of mental stress. It may be on a continuum but our mantra during this whole series is ‘Everyone has a story.'”
“The Me You Can’t See” is streaming now on Apple TV+.
