Princess Catherine’s once close relationship with brother-in-law Prince Harry has long been questioned since he departed the British royal family in 2020.
Prior to his exit with wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, the pair were frequently spotted in fits of laughter. Prince Harry once admitted he “liked making her laugh.”
“My transparently silly side connected with her heavily disguised silly side,” he confessed in his memoir Spare.
Those “silly” moments feel decades away. Now, a royal expert has weighed in on their dynamic.
According to author Christopher Andersen in his upcoming novel Kate! The Courage, Grace and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen, the Princess of Wales was “disappointed” following one of Harry’s interviews.
Surprisingly, the final straw wasn’t the Oprah Winfrey exclusive, but rather the BBC tell-all in 2025. During this interview, the Duke of Sussex admitted he “would love a reconciliation” with his family.
He also discussed King Charles, particularly his cancer battle and that he didn’t “know how much longer [his] father has.”
In an excerpt provided to US Weekly, Christopher wrote: “The damage was done: seeds of doubt concerning the King’s chances for a full recovery had been sown.”
Princess Catherine, who was also battling cancer at the time, was allegedly “more disappointed than angry” by her brother-in-law’s comments.
It is Christopher’s opinion that Catherine “must have felt stung by that comment as well, since she is in a situation very similar to the King’s,” he told US Weekly.
“She knows better than anyone that having someone publicly imply you may be at death’s door is horribly demoralising.”
A staff member of Sandringham added that although Catherine is “the sweetest, most loving person you could ever know,” even she “has her limits.”
But Prince William was reportedly overwhelmingly furious, a royal courtier’s testimony claimed in Christopher’s novel.
“But William, who had already slammed the door shut on his brother over what Harry wrote in Spare, was, in the words of a courtier, ‘apoplectic’ with rage,” he wrote.
“Now it was time to nail the door shut once and for all, and for the first time Kate, who had worked harder than anyone to mend the rift between the brothers, willingly handed her husband a hammer.”
