Prince Harry has said he feared “history repeating itself” in a reference to his mother’s death as he recounted his royal life with wife Meghan Markle in the couple’s much anticipated interview with Oprah Winfrey.

US television network CBS has released two 30-second excerpts from Oprah With Meghan And Harry: A CBS Primetime Special, which is set to air in the US on Sunday.

In the first clip, Oprah asks the Duchess of Sussex if she was “silent or silenced”, with Meghan’s answer not revealed.

She then asks the duchess: “Almost unsurvivable. Sounds like there was a breaking point?” The clip then quickly cuts to the duke commenting: “My biggest fear was history repeating itself.”

In the second video, Harry says he is grateful to have had Meghan’s support throughout his exit from royal life, while also expressing admiration for what his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, had to endure under similar circumstances.

He tells Oprah: “I’m just really relieved and happy to be sitting here, talking to you, with my wife by my side, because I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her, going through this process by herself, all those years ago.

“Because it has been unbelievably tough for the two of us, but at least we had each other.”

It comes days after Harry’s appearance on US talk show The Late Late Show, in which he told host James Cordon the “toxic” atmosphere created by the British press is what forced him and his family to leave the UK.

During the interview with the British actor and presenter, Harry also opened up on his family life.

He said dating for him or any of the royal family is “flipped upside down”, telling James early dates are at home and only when they are a couple do they venture out in public.

“We got to spend an enormous amount of time just the two of us,” he said of his early relationship with Meghan. “There were no distractions, and that was great, it was an amazing thing. We went from zero to 60 in the first two months.”