Netflix series, memoir and ITV interview reveal Harry has ammunition on William and is prepared to use it
If the Duke of Sussex’s hopes are for an early reconciliation with his family, his wishes seem unlikely to be fulfilled any time soon, judging from extracts published from his tell-all memoir, Spare, due out on Tuesday.
The dramatic scenario Harry describes, with his brother William, now Prince of Wales, allegedly physically attacking him and knocking him to the floor in a furious row over the Duchess of Sussex, is startling. It shows, despite the six-hour Netflix documentary series, Harry still has the ammunition; that he is happy to take aim at his family and the institution; and that he is capable of inflicting deep wounds that may take some time, if ever, to heal.
No wonder, as he tells ITV’s Tom Bradby in an interview due to air at 9pm on Sunday, that he does not yet know if he will attend his father’s 6 May coronation “as there is a lot that can happen between now and then”.
Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace, who have both declined to comment on the allegations, must be awaiting publication of the book with no little trepidation. It seems King Charles’s plea to his sons, as recounted by Harry, at the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral: “Please, boys, don’t make my final years a misery,” may have fallen on stony ground.
Constitutionally, a row between the two brothers, is not of import. Harry’s claim that, during a heated confrontation over Meghan at his Nottingham Cottage home at Kensington Palace in 2019, William grabbed him by the collar, ripped his necklace, and knocked him to the floor causing visible injuries to his back, could be seen as an unsightly and unfortunate sibling altercation.
The argument, during which Harry alleges William parroted “the press narrative” about Meghan, calling her “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”, could not be described as a fight, it is suggested, because Harry claims he did not physically retaliate. Instead, he called his therapist immediately afterwards.
But the fact that William will, one day, be King, casts a different light on it. The world has only heard one side, of course. But Harry paints a picture of a hot-tempered future king, and one capable of losing control, which is very much at odds with William’s public profile.
There were hints of this before, if Harry’s narrative is to be believed. In the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, he claimed it was “terrifying” to have William “scream and shout” at him during the fraught Sandringham summit that sealed the Sussex’s departure from the UK and royal life.
Harry also claimed he had nothing to do with a joint statement, put out in both brothers’ names, denying press reports that William had bullied him and Meghan out of the family, thus revealing his anger that such a statement had been put out by the palace PR machine.
Piecing it all together, from Harry’s perspective at least, the deterioration of his relationship with his brother – their pet names of Willy and Harold are revealed in the book – seems to have been a huge factor in the Sussex’s quite sudden decision to leave. Only now, Harry appears to feel, does he have a voice to counter what he believes has been the “leaking and planting” of stories by members of the family, against him and his wife.
The Princess of Wales, to whom Harry was once close, will also not escape, it appears. The US website Page Six said sources familiar with the book reveal Harry allegedly puts part of the blame for him wearing a Nazi uniform to a colonials and natives fancy dress party, which caused international outrage in 2005 when he was aged 20, squarely on William’s and Kate’s shoulders.
He reportedly tells how he phoned the couple to ask them whether he should choose a pilot’s uniform or a Nazi one, and William and Kate allegedly said the latter and howled with laughter when he went home and tried it on for them. The Nazi uniform, he told the Netflix docuseries, “probably was one of the biggest mistakes of my life”. For a prince who tells ITV’s Tom Bradby, “I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back”, time will tell if his decision to reveal all may personally prove to be an even greater one.