The beginning of the end? Prince Harry broke down the tension that existed between him and Prince William the night before his wedding to Meghan Markle.
“He’d been scheduled to join us for the evening. But, like Meg’s father [Thomas Markle], he’d canceled last minute,” the Duke of Sussex, 38, wrote in his Spare memoir, which Us Weekly can exclusively reveal. “He told me, just before he attended tea with Granny. ‘Can’t do it, Harold. Kate and the kids.’ I’d reminded him that this was our tradition, that we’d had dinner before his wedding, that’d we’d gone together and visited the crowds. He held fast. ‘Can’t do it.’”
Harry recalled feeling “sick” about the growing distance between him and his brother, 40.
“I’d always believed, despite our problems, that our underling bond was strong,” he continued, noting that he reminded William about the tradition that started from his wedding to Princess Kate. “As we drove off, I asked him to come have dinner with me. I mentioned maybe staying the night, as I’d done before his wedding. He’d come for dinner, he said, but wouldn’t be able to stay.”
According to Harry, William previously warned him not to propose to Meghan, 41, too quickly into their relationship. “It’s too fast, he’d told me. Too soon,” he claimed. “In fact, he’d actually been pretty discouraging about my even dating Meg. One day, sitting together in his garden, he’d predicted a host of difficulties I could expect if I hooked up with an ‘American actress,’ a phrase he always managed to make sound like a ‘convicted felon.’”
The BetterUp CIO has opened up about his strained relationship with his family in the past. Following his and Meghan’s royal exit in 2020, Harry recalled the challenges when it came to reuniting with William and King Charles III.
“It was hard. Especially spending time, having chats with my brother and my father. [They] were very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation,” he detailed in his Netflix docuseries with Meghan, which was released in December 2022. “None of us really wanted to have to talk about it at my grandfather’s [Prince Philip] funeral, but we did.”
At the time, Harry admitted that he couldn’t see how he would be able to mend his issues with the royal family, saying, “I’ve had to make peace with the fact that we’re probably never gonna get genuine accountability or a genuine apology. My wife and I, we’re moving on. We’re focused on what’s coming next.”
For the U.K. native, his different perspective has continued to fuel distance between him and his loved ones. “There’s times when I’ve been angry, but I can’t be that angry because I genuinely feel that we are exactly where we’re supposed to be. We’ve made it to the other side,” he added.
Spare will be released on Tuesday, January 10.
