Prince Harry has revealed he's "excited" about the future as he turns 40, a marked change from the "anxious" feeling he had a decade ago.
Harry will celebrate his 40th birthday on September 15 and is expected to spend the milestone day with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, at their home in California.
Ahead of the big day, the prince told the BBC in a statement via his spokesperson that his mission moving forward is to continue "doing good."
"I was anxious about 30, I'm excited about 40," he said. "Whatever the age, my mission is to continue showing up and doing good in the world."
Harry's life has changed drastically over the past decade. His 30th birthday was marked with a celebratory dinner at Clarence House, the London home of his father, King Charles III. He was viewed as a confirmed bachelor who would soon face leaving his beloved Army career and faced an uncomfortable inheritance to mark his birthday.
In his memoir, Spare, published in 2023, Harry wrote that when he turned 29 he began to dread entering his fourth decade and that passing that milestone had a painful link to his mother, the late Princess Diana.
"I shuddered to think of how I might feel on the next birthday: thirty. Truly over-the-hill," he wrote. "To say nothing of the inheritance it would trigger."
"Upon reaching thirty, I'd receive a large sum left to me by Mummy. I scolded myself for being gloomy about that: most people would kill to inherit money. To me, however, it was another reminder of her absence, another sign of the void she'd left, which pounds and euros could never fill. The best thing, I decided, was to get away from birthdays."
Little did the prince know then that just nine months into his 31st year he would meet his future wife, Meghan Markle.
The couple met through a mutual friend and became a serious item soon after meeting at a London members club. They announced their engagement in 2017 and married at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle on May 19 the following year.
The couple's relationship with the monarchy and members of the royal family became quickly strained, and in January 2020, they split from the institution, moving to a new home in the U.S.
What has followed has been four years of tabloid drama, bombshell interviews, Netflix shows, lawsuits, and memoirs filled with royal intrigue for the public eager to consume all the fraught family details.
However, the duke and duchess' post-royal lives have taken a turn in recent months with the position that they are looking forward and moving on from the drama of their royal past, and focusing on their philanthropic and private enterprise futures.
A source of consistent joy to them both is their children, Archie—born in 2019 prior to the couple's split from the monarchy—and Princess Lilibet, born in California in 2021.
Fatherhood, Harry has said, is one of his most important life's purposes.
"Becoming a father of two incredibly kind and funny kids has given me a fresh perspective on life, as well as sharpening my focus in all my work," he told the BBC ahead of his birthday.
"Being a dad is one of life's greatest joys and has only made me more driven and more committed to making this world a better place."
Far from being "anxious," Harry now finds himself in a position, with his new family and new life in the U.S, to be excited. "Bring on the next decade," he told the BBC.
Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry via email for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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