The Duke of Sussex wrote about his fractured relationship with some royal family members in his memoir, Spare, including his older brother, Prince William.
While some relations remain strained, Prince Harry still shares a close bond with the Spencer side of his family, as well as some of his cousins.
Here’s everything Harry has said about his closest family members.
The royal cousins have always been close from a young age with only six years between them. Princess Eugenie was one of the first family members to know about Harry’s romance with American actress, Meghan Markle, and the Duke shared details of their first meeting in his book, writing: “Our dinner guests were my cousin Euge, her boyfriend Jack, and my mate Charlie.
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Princess Eugenie has visited Harry and Meghan in the US
“The salmon turned out perfectly and everyone complimented Meg on her culinary talents. They also devoured her stories. They wanted to hear all about Suits. And her travels. I was grateful for their interest, their warmth.”
He added: “I remember Euge hugging Meg, as if they were sisters. I remember Charlie giving me a thumbs-up. I remember thinking: If meeting the rest of my family goes like this, we’re home free.”
Harry has remained close to his mother Princess Diana’s side of the family. He described a more recent reunion with his uncle, Charles Spencer, in the epilogue of his book, recalling the moment he took Meghan to see his mother’s grave at at her childhood home, Althorp, near the 25th anniversary of Diana’s death last year.
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Earl Spencer with Harry in 2021
The Duke describes him and Meghan getting into a boat to row across to the private island on the estate which marks Diana’s final resting place.
“Uncle Charles came down to the water’s edge, gave us a little shove. We waved to him, and to my two aunts. Bye. See you in a bit. Gliding across the pond, I gazed around at Althorp’s rolling fields and ancient trees, the thousands of green acres where my mother grew up, and where, though things weren’t perfect, she’d known some peace.”
Earlier in the book, when speaking about Diana’s funeral, Harry said that his uncle “raised hell” about him and William, as young teenagers, walking behind their mother’s coffin – “‘You can’t make these boys walk behind their mother’s coffin! It’s barbaric.'”
Harry was spotted warmly embracing his aunts, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, when he unveiled a statue of Princess Diana at Kensington Palace in June 2021.
In his memoir, he speaks about how supportive his aunts were, following the death of his mother, with Lady Sarah giving him the present Diana had bought for him in the weeks before his 13th birthday.
Harry and William with their aunts at the statue unveiling
Diana had purchased an Xbox for her teenage son, because he loved video games, with Harry writing that the gift had made him happy.
Harry has openly spoken about his bond with mother-in-law, Doria, describing the yoga instructor as “amazing” in his and Meghan’s Netflix docuseries.
In Spare, he recalls being nervous about meeting Meghan’s mother for the first time and describes where they met: “We were celebrating Doria, celebrating being together, and doing it all at our favorite place, Soho House at 76 Dean Street.”
Harry described mother-in-law Doria as “amazing”
He later added: “That dinner with Doria was wonderful, but I look back on it now as the end of the beginning. The next day, the pap photos appeared, and there was a new flood of stories, a new surge along the many channels of social media. Racism, misogyny, criminal stupidity—it all increased.”
Doria is also mentioned in the acknowledgments in Harry’s book, with the Duke writing: “Above all my deepest and adoringest thanks to Archie and Lili, for letting Papa go off to read and think and reflect, to my mother-in-law (aka Grandma), and to my incredible wife, for too many millions of gifts and sacrifices, great and small, to ever enumerate.”
Listen: The Harry and Meghan A Right Royal Podcast special
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