There’s clearly no love lost, at this point.
The Guardian has got hold of an early copy of Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, and one incident from 2019 is standing out. Harry reportedly alleges that his brother William, the Prince of Wales, “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and … knocked me to the floor,” during an argument over Harry’s wife, Meghan. (Read the full article here.)
An argument that got out of hand
The heated dispute, which apparently took place at Nottingham Cottage, Harry’s London home, centered on accusations William reportedly made against Meghan. William apparently called her “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive,” to which Harry responded that William was just parroting the “press narrative” against his wife, and that he expected better of his brother.
Harry reportedly accused William of acting like an “heir,” and failing to empathize with Harry’s position as the spare. Apparently, after William claimed that he was only trying to “help,” Harry responded: “Are you serious? Help me? Sorry – is that what you call this? Helping me?”
With tempers running high the fight escalated, and according to The Guardian, Harry writes: “He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor.”
The brothers’ long-standing dispute over the media
Another British paper, The Sun, has also seen a copy of Spare, which the tabloid says went on sale in Spain by accident. According to the paper, which picked up on the same incident in the book, William had come to Harry’s house to discuss the “rolling catastrophe” of Meghan’s relationship with the media, but was already “piping hot” when he arrived.
After the physical altercation, William apparently left, then returned to say that he was sorry — but added that Harry needn’t tell Meghan what had happened. Per The Sun, Harry writes that he instead called his therapist. According to the paper, Harry says the clash left a visible injury on his back.
“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,” Harry apparently writes.
This bombshell leak from Harry’s memoir, Spare, which comes out on January 10, is just the latest indication that all is far from well between the two brothers. In his recent Netflix special, which he made with Meghan, Harry made it clear that the pair had received barely any support from his family during Meghan’s mental health crisis, even as the U.K. media’s coverage demonstrated an increasingly racial bias against her.
Not the only time things got out of hand
Harry also says in the documentary that William had yelled at him during a family meeting convened by his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.
“It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren’t true, and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in,” Harry says.
He adds that despite a promise made between the brothers years previously, William’s press office had briefed against himself and Meghan — apparently in order to bury stories that might affect William negatively.
“The offices end up working against each other,” Harry says, explaining that the process is carried out in such a way as to ensure that no one’s hands are dirty. “You can always say, ‘I didn’t know about this,’ or ‘Don’t be ridiculous, this would never happen, I would never — are you suggesting that I condone this?’ It’s like, ‘No. But what I am asking is have you done anything to stop it?’ And the answer is no.”
He continues: “I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game or this business of trading [negative stories]. To see my brother’s office copy the very same thing that we promised the two of us would never ever do, that was heartbreaking.”
Meghan agreed with her husband’s account, adding: “You would just see it play out, like, a story about someone in the family would pop up for a minute and they’d go, ‘Gotta make that go away.’ But there’s real estate on a website homepage, there is real estate there on a newspaper front cover and something has to be filled in there about someone royal.”
