Prince Harry turned down Prince William’s attempt for a crisis meeting to quash their rift, a new book has claimed.
Royal expert Valentine Low has claimed William wanted to meet with Harry after the Duke of Sussex said they were “on different paths” in the November 2019 documentary, Harry and Meghan: An African Journey.
“Part of this role and part of this job, this family, being under the pressure that it’s under, inevitably stuff happens,” Harry said in the ITV documentary at the time.
Harry rejected William’s olive branch. (Image: Getty)
“But look, we’re brothers, we’ll always be brothers. We’re certainly on different paths at the moment but I’ll always be there for him and as I know he’ll always be there for me.
The emotional interview of Harry and Meghan Markle prompted William to realise the Sussexes and the royal family “were in crisis”, Low claimed in his book Courtiers.
William and Kate Middleton were on their own royal tour in Pakistan at the time the interview aired, but when they returned to the UK, the Prince of Wales reached out to his brother in a desperate bid to mend fences.
Harry and Meghan filmed the documentary while on their South African tour in 2019. (Image: Getty)
“The day after the documentary aired, William WhatsApped his brother to ask if he could come and see him. This put Harry and Meghan into a spin. What should they do?” Low wrote.
“Initially, Harry was in favour. Then he spoke to his brother again, and asked him whom he would tell. William explained that he’d have to clear his schedule, which would mean telling his private secretary. At that point, Harry told him: ‘Don’t come’.”
The bombshell new royal book claims Harry was “so concerned” that William’s team would leak the visit to the press that he would “rather not see his brother than risk it getting into the papers.”
Harry’s snub of his brother is said to have “highlighted the dysfunction at the heart of so many royal relationships”, and how members of the royal family rarely pick up the phone to speak to each other directly.
Low also claimed William and Kate’s team felt that Harry and Meghan were trying to overshadow their tour of Pakistan, which took place at the same time as their documentary release.
“William and Kate’s team was not happy, it seems, and saw it as a deliberate attempt to knock the couple out of the headlines. Relations between the two households became quite tense.”
