And you thought your family was dramatic.
An explosive new book about the royal family is raising some eyebrows, though this certainly isn’t the first time that’s happened in the last few years. (Thank you, Prince Harry, for your memoir Spare.) In his tell-all Endgame, British journalist Omid Scobie purports to reveal some stunning revelations that are likely causing a serious fuss in the halls of Buckingham Palace.
Among the more juicy allegations is that King Charles reportedly branded Prince Harry as “that fool” after he and his wife Meghan Markle released a six-hour docuseries, Harry & Meghan, on Netflix in December 2022. Scobie also details the heartbreaking way Prince Harry found out about Queen Elizabeth’s death, and how Princess Kate really talked about Meghan behind her back. Of course, the writer goes beyond the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to explore other alleged family rifts, including King Charles’ fraught relationship with his other son, Prince William.
Here’s what we know about some of the other bold claims in the book. (You might want to take them with a grain of salt, as The New York Times is: The publication likened Scobie’s latest work to “a press release cooked up by ChatGPT.”)
Prince William thinks Prince Harry has been brainwashed
An anonymous source reportedly told Scobie that Prince William believes that his younger brother has been brainwashed by an “army of therapists” and seems like a stranger to him now. “He feels he has lost Harry and doesn’t want to know this version of him,” the unnamed person said.
Meanwhile, Harry is moving on from the drama that ensued after he married Meghan. According to Scobie’s account, he’s focusing on being a good father to his kids, Archie and Princess Lilibet, and prioritizing his own mental and physical health by working out with a personal trainer.
Prince Harry found out about Queen Elizabeth’s death like everyone else
Scobie reported that Prince Harry didn’t know his grandmother had died until Meghan texted him, saying she received a BBC breaking news alert that the queen had died.
At the time, he was rushing to be by Her Majesty’s side and had pleaded with Buckingham Palace to hold back any statements about her rapidly declining health, but apparently the royals couldn’t wait any longer after his plane was delayed due to bad weather.
“Harry was crushed,” an unidentified friend of the duke told Scobie. “His relationship with the queen was everything to him. She would have wanted him to know before it went out to the world.”
Scobie also claims Prince Harry was “left completely by himself” and was ignored by Prince William during the ordeal. The duke was reportedly informed that his brother had only secured a flight for himself and uncles Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, while Harry was left to make his own way by using a private plane, costing an estimated $37,000.
King Charles and Prince William don’t see eye-to-eye
Prince Harry isn’t the only one with a fraught relationship to royalty: Endgame portrays Prince William as an ambitious and hotheaded prince who already has his eyes on the throne.
Scobie says that Prince William is “not giving his father the same space” that King Charles gave with the late Queen. “There’s no time for that,” he writes. In contrast with his father, Prince William also wants to rip up the rule book and modernize the monarchy “the Cambridge way.”
While father and son don’t agree on everything, they apparently share a similar frustration toward Prince Harry, who has cast them both in a less-than-flattering light in the media. (Prince Harry called his brother his “archnemesis” in his memoir, Spare.)
Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle were never close
Apparently, the future queen and the former actress were never really friendly. Scobie writes that Kate spent “more time talking about Meghan than talking to her” and “jokingly shivered” when her name came up.
It’s no secret that the royal family wasn’t a fan of Meghan. While the Princess of Wales was seen as an “institutional dream come true,” an unspecified former palace aide told Scobie that Meghan was painted as difficult “because she had opinions.”
“They wanted Meghan to just go with everything that was suggested and not create any additional work,” he writes. “It was a combination of her not conforming with how women marrying into the family are expected to behave and certain individuals just being lazy.”
King Charles has a soft spot for Prince Andrew
The king got reportedly emotional over his brother Prince Andrew’s fall from grace. The Duke of York was stripped of his military titles by the late queen in 2022, for his ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, accused him of sexually abusing her at his apartment when she was just 17 years old. Though he denied these allegations, he later paid her $16 million to settle the case.
According to Scobie, Prince William “set the wheels in motion” when it came to the royal family’s decision to distance themselves from Prince Andrew, but King Charles “didn’t want any part of” it. It’s worth noting that the new king didn’t take the same tact with his own son: “Stonewalling and expelling his son came easy enough,” Scobie writes.
Will this salacious book tarnish the royal crown beyond repair? Only time will tell.
