Prince Harry felt Prince Charles valued his own public image above their father-son relationship, a bombshell biography detailing the Sussexes’ dramatic departure from royal life has revealed.
According to Finding Freedom, the Duke of Sussex felt the Prince of Wales put the British public’s opinions of him above anything else.
The biography, written by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, also revealed Harry had ‘grown frustrated’ that he and Meghan ‘often took a back seat to other family members,’ including his father and brother.
Prince Harry (right with Meghan) felt Prince Charles (left with Prince William) valued his own public image above their father-son relationship, a bombshell biography detailing the Sussexes’ dramatic departure from royal life has revealed
The biography, written by Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, also revealed Harry had ‘grown frustrated’ that he and Meghan ‘often took a back seat to other family members,’ including his father and brother. Pictured: The royal family after the annual Commonwealth Service in March
Harry’s feelings, as the hotly anticipated book suggests, are set to hurt Prince Charles who walked his youngest son’s bride down the aisle in 2018, The Sunday Times reports.
Finding Freedom: Harry, Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, has been written by royal watchers Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, described as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s ‘cheerleaders’
An extract of the biography, serialised this weekend by The Times, said: ‘Increasingly Harry had grown frustrated that he and Meghan often took a back seat to other family members.
‘While they both respected the hierarchy of the institution, it was difficult when they wanted to focus on a project and were told that a more senior ranking family member, be it Prince William or Prince Charles, had an initiative or tour being announced at the same time — so they would just have to wait.’
Charles was always going to include Harry and Meghan in the future of the royal family – even if it was cut down in size – and he is said to have told the couple so.
But feelings were hurt when Harry and Meghan didn’t tell the Firm when they were developing their own Sussex Royal website.
The extract read: ‘Even sources close to Harry and Meghan had to admit that the way the couple were forced to approach the situation (mainly in the act of keeping the family and their team in the dark about their website) “created a lot of ill will in the household and especially in the family”.’
Prince Charles, Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry arrive for the Royal Family’s traditional Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham in 2018
Palace sources fear the book – which lifts the lid on the Sussexes’ exit from the Firm – could make Harry and Meghan’s rift with the Royals worse due to it’s account of some of their grievances.
The book provides an intimately detailed and personalised version of the events leading up to the Sussexes’ dramatic departure from royal life, with co-authors Scobie and Durand insisting ‘all information in this book has at least two sources’.
Harry and Meghan deny giving interviews.
In other explosive revelations revealed in the excerpts:
- Prince Harry was ‘p****d off’ with ‘snob’ William as he was warned to take things slow with ‘this girl’ Meghan;
- William questioned Meghan’s intentions and feared that Duke of Sussex was being ‘blindsided by lust’;
- Palace insiders referred to Meghan as ‘Harry’s showgirl’ and said US actress came with a ‘lot of baggage’;
- High-ranking palace courtier was overheard telling colleague: ‘There’s something about this girl I don’t trust’;
- Two couples hardly spoke at March Commonwealth service despite not having seen each other since January;
- The Sussexes felt their complaints were not taken seriously and believed other royal households were leaking stories about them to the press;
- Being told to operate under Buckingham Palace’s umbrella after splitting their household from the Cambridges was ‘a big disappointment’ to the Sussexes;
- The Sussexes even considered breaking protocol by springing a surprise visit on the Queen when they believed they were being blocked from seeing the monarch.
Meghan, Prince Harry and Prince William on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on the 100th anniversary of the RAF, 2018
The book also suggests that Kate Middleton and Meghan never became friends – while the Duchess of Sussex was ‘disappointed’ she never reached out to her or visited.
The Duchesses ‘struggled to move past distance politeness’ and had ‘nothing in common other than the fact that they lived at Kensington Palace’, it read.
In one particularly awkward encounter when Meghan was dating Harry, Kate went alone in her Range Rover on a shopping trip – despite the fact Meghan was also going to the same street.
The lack of any friendship between the pair was confirmed in 2018 when the Sussexes announced they wanted to base their family at Windsor.
Despite this frostiness, Meghan felt hurt at newspaper stories of the ‘duelling duchesses’ and was angry at the failure of the palace press office to correct them.