Prince William and Prince Harry’s ‘Tougher Obstacle’ to Reconciliation Involves Kate Middleton

A royal biographer says what Prince Harry said about Kate Middleton in ‘Spare’ is a major hurdle to overcome in reconciling with Prince William.

Harry didn’t hold back in Spare, even receiving criticism for oversharing when the memoir debuted in January 2023. However, it was his openness that “really hurt” Harry’s older brother, the Prince of Wales, according to royal biographer Robert Hardman. Speaking on the Jan. 19, 2024, episode of Hello!’s “A Right Royal Podcast,” The Making of a King author shared that unlike their father, King Charles III, William’s not open to a reconciliation with Harry. And, yes, it’s all because of Spare.

“William is a very private man, who guards his family’s privacy very, very closely,” Hardman said. “And so, to have so many tender childhood secrets, stories, and conversations just chucked out into the public domain, I think that really hurt.”

Harry, now 39, included various unflattering passages about the Princess of Wales in Spare. They ranged from Kate supposedly bringing his wife, Meghan Markle, to tears over bridesmaids’ dresses to grimacing over shared lipgloss. Harry’s comment about men in the royal family feeling compelled to marry women who fit the royal mold in 2022’s Harry & Meghan docuseries probably didn’t help either.

Discussing King Charles III being more open to a reconciliation with Harry than William on Hello!’s “A Right Royal Podcast,” The Making of a King author Robert Hardman shared it’s a difficult road ahead for the estranged brothers. A big part of that has to do with Harry’s “veiled criticisms of the new Princess of Wales” in Spare, which were a blow to William. “I just think that’s a tougher obstacle,” the biographer said. Although Hardman isn’t ruling out the idea of William and Harry someday reconciling.

“But as we’ve seen with the royals, all through the years, and all through history — never say never. Things change, they move on, [and] we all adapt to make concessions and get over things.” Everything going on, or rather not going on, between William and Harry took a while for Kate to grasp. As royal expert Jennie Bond once told OK! Magazine, being from a “happy, united family” likely contributed to Kate, now 42, not being able fully “undestand how people can become estranged.”

“I think she believed the rift could be fixed. After Prince Philip’s funeral, we saw her talking with Harry and obviously encouraging William to do the same. But we now know that it didn’t work. In fact, William and Harry had a blazing row right after the funeral.” “There comes a point when you just have to accept that happy families are not a game that everyone can play,” Bond continued. “Catherine has been hurt and insulted by things that Harry and Meghan have said.”

However, Kate and William “are a very strong team.” Together, they’ve likely decided things with “Harry cannot be fixed in the foreseeable future. They’ve closed their minds to that possibility and decided to get on with their lives.”