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A father’s plea. Prince Harry claimed his dad, King Charles III, asked him and Prince William to stop feuding so he could enjoy his old age.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, recounted the conversation in an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Spare, obtained by Us Weekly, revealing that he and the Prince of Wales, 40, had an argument after Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021. William and Charles, 74, had agreed to meet with Harry to discuss his issues with the royal family following his and Meghan Markle‘s bombshell March 2021 interview with CBS.
“I’d vowed not to let this encounter devolve into another argument,” the Invictus Games founder wrote. “But I quickly discovered that it wasn’t up to me. Pa and Willy had their parts to play, and they’d come ready for a fight.”
The BetterUp CIO alleged that his father and brother cut him off every time he tried to explain himself, with the Duke of Cambridge “in particular” not wanting to hear his side of things. Eventually, the king stepped in.
“It got so heated that Pa raised his hands. ‘Enough!’” Harry remembered. “He stood between us, looking up at our flushed faces: ‘Please, boys — don’t make my final years a misery.’ His voice sounded raspy, fragile. It sounded, if I’m being honest, old.”
The former military pilot hasn’t held back about his feelings toward his relatives since stepping down as a senior working royal in 2020, but Spare contains even more shocking revelations about William and Charles. In one chapter, Harry claimed that he and his older brother got into a physical fight after William allegedly called Meghan, 41, “difficult” and “rude” in 2019.
According to Harry, his sibling “grabbed” him by the collar and broke his necklace before he “knocked me to the floor” — and allegedly asked him not to tell the Suits alum about the altercation. While the brothers had many fights over the years, Harry claimed that this one “felt different.”
The royal family hasn’t yet responded to any of the details in Spare, but royal expert Christopher Andersen told Us he doesn’t think reconciliation is likely for Harry and his relatives.
“If Harry wants his father and brother back as he says [in a trailer for his ITV sit-down], he has an awfully peculiar way of going about it. Spare makes any hope of rapprochement impossible,” the King: The Life of King Charles III author said on Thursday, January 5. “As far as I can see, even if Harry does attend his father’s coronation in May, it will be his farewell appearance as a member of the family.”
When asked whether he plans to go to the coronation later this year, Harry didn’t provide a definitive answer. “There’s a lot that can happen between now and then,” he said in a clip from his upcoming ITV interview, which airs Sunday, January 8. “But, you know, the door is always open. The ball is in their court. There’s a lot to be discussed and I really hope that they are willing to sit down and talk about it.”
Spare will be published on Tuesday, January 10.