OH, BROTHER...

Harry Takes Pointed Swipe at William Over Vicious Feud

The duke said he wants to mend the fractured relationship with his brother after their four-year rift.

Prince Harry has said he wants to reconcile with his brother—but suggested Prince William is to blame for their ongoing estrangement.

The brothers still have not spoken in four years, even after Harry returned to the U.K. in August with Meghan and their two children. The duke of Sussex has previously described his fights with his brother, including an altercation over an “abrasive” Meghan.

But in a new interview with GQ, published as part of the magazine’s One More Question series, Harry says he “of course” grieves his “complicated relationships” with William and their father. He calls family estrangement “another massively relatable issue for so many people,” and then adds: “Some people don’t want it to work out. I want it to work out.”

When asked whether he really does, he insists: “Of course I do. Again, with everything else that’s going on in the world, the most important thing is to reconcile. That’s the key point.”

Harry’s spokesperson later denied that the duke was alluding to his brother. They said: “It was absolutely not intended as a swipe at his brother or any other member of his family. The comment was made in a general context and was not directed at his family in any way.”

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Palace officials have always told me that “a period of silence,” as they put it, is what would help thaw relations between the two brothers. Instead, Harry is putting it all out there and giving plenty of reasons why it’s fine to do so.

“Someone like me, if you’re sitting back staying quiet, keeping low, the stories don’t stop,” he says. He has been “really criticized for telling my story,” he complains, adding: “everybody else is allowed to tell their version of my story, but God forbid I should be able to tell the other side of it. Just by telling my own story, it takes away a lot of power from other people.”

Last year, Harry told the BBC he would love a reconciliation with his family and saw no point in fighting any longer.

The whole interview is hooked around Harry’s MasterClass on grief, titled “Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss,” which he co-teaches with neuroscientist Mary-Frances O’Connor.

Asked whether his father’s illness has brought on a kind of “anticipatory” grief, Harry replies: “Yes, but he’s getting better.”

Speaking about Diana, Harry says: “Maybe I’ve spent too much time in California, but having done the work that I’ve done, there is a connection still with my mom that I really do feel her energy at certain times.”

In his autobiography Spare, Harry claims that Prince William grabbed him and threw him to the floor during a heated confrontation over Meghan in 2019.

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The argument at Harry’s London home in 2019 reportedly escalated after William said Meghan was “difficult,” “rude,” and “abrasive.”

Harry writes: “It all happened so fast. So very fast …

“He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”

Want more royal gossip, scoops and scandal? Follow all Tom Sykes’ reporting at The Royalist on Substack or listen to The Royalist podcast on YouTube.

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