A Complete Timeline Of Prince Harry And Prince William's Feud
Prince Harry and Prince William used to make headlines for reasons other than their ongoing feud, believe it or not. Those who kept up with the royals over the years would remember a time when Harry and William's relationship was the epitome of brotherly affection. In 2024, a clip of 21-year-old Harry talking affectionately about his older brother resurfaced. Aside from reminding royal watchers of the good old days, this clip also showed how far the brothers have drifted apart since.
The clip shows Harry talking about the close bond he has with his brother and how they've always been each other's safe place. "He is the one person on this earth who, I can actually really, you know, we can talk about anything and we understand each other and give each other support and everything's fine," Harry said in the video (via the Daily Mail). Harry also shared how he and William grew closer with each passing year. "We've even resorted to hugging each other now after not seeing each other for long periods of time," he said, adding that the two of them regularly called each other whenever they were apart. Now, most of us have trouble recalling the last time the brothers shared a warm embrace, let alone an affectionate phone call.
If you're wondering how things went so very wrong, we got you. Read on to discover how Harry and William went from brothers in arms to brothers at war.
1998: William leaves Harry out in the cold during their time at Eton
The truth about Prince Harry and Prince William's relationship is that they have a history of being at loggerheads, which is not unusual for siblings. However, in his tell-all memoir "Spare" Harry revealed that things between him and William first started getting bumpy when he joined him at Eton, a prestigious boarding school for boys. In the book, Harry recalls being incredibly excited to finally attend the same school as his brother. He was thrilled that they'd finally be able to spend more time together. But William had other plans — and they did not include Harry. Williiam told his younger brother to pretend that he didn't know him whenever they came face-to-face at school, and this broke young Harry's heart. William, Harry claims, didn't want them to be seen as a "package deal" and completely distanced himself from Harry while they were both at Eton.
"I couldn't make sense of it. I was like, 'What do you mean? We're now at the same school. Like, I haven't seen you for ages, now we get to hang out together," Harry told Anderson Cooper during his "60 Minutes" interview (via the Mirror). "He's like, 'No, no, no, when we're at school we don't know each other.' And I took that personally." Harry said that, in retrospect, he understands that the younger sibling can be irritating, but he didn't grasp it at the time.
2005: William encourages Harry to wear a Nazi costume, which leads to a massive media scandal
Few will ever forget that one time Prince Harry wore a Nazi costume to a party in 2005. What most didn't know, however, is that Prince William and Princess Catherine apparently knew that Harry planned to wear the costume — and they didn't discourage him from wearing it. On the contrary, they encouraged him to choose the Nazi uniform instead of the British pilot outfit he also picked out. In his memoir "Spare," Harry touched on the Nazi costume scandal, which was arguably one of the royal family's biggest PR disasters to date. "I tried it on. Willy and Kate started roaring with laughter," Harry wrote.
No one was laughing the following day when pictures of Harry wearing the costume hit The Sun's front page. The backlash was instant: "A senior royal dressing up as a Nazi for a laugh? If that is his idea of a joke it went down like a lead balloon with many ... The Nazis were responsible for the deaths of millions. To turn that into a jokey idea for a fancy dress is an absolute disgrace," a guest told The Sun (via The Guardian). In his book "Battle of Brothers," historian Robert Lacey echoes Harry's claims that William encouraged him to wear the costume. "The young prince began re-evaluating his elder brother's involvement and the unfairness of William's subsequent emergence smelling of roses," Lacey wrote.
2010: William fails to tell Harry that he will be proposing to Catherine
When Prince William made the life-altering decision to propose to Princess Catherine in 2010, there were various royal rules he had to follow — one of which was asking for Queen Elizabeth II's approval, of course. One unspoken royal rule Prince William broke, however, was letting his brother know about his plans to propose ahead of time.
In his tell-all memoir "Spare," Prince Harry made the shocking claim that he had no idea William was planning on proposing to Catherine until he heard about it in the news. Yikes. The worst part? The two brothers had spent time together in Lesotho in South Africa shortly before William got down on one knee, so he had plenty of time to let his little brother in on his plans — but he didn't. "Soon after we returned to Britain, the palace announced that Willy was going to marry. November 2010... News to me. All that time together in Lesotho, he'd never mentioned it," Harry wrote.
Harry also blasted claims that he and William shared a special moment before the latter proposed to Catherine and that he gave William their mother's iconic sapphire ring. Harry called the claims "florid," writing, "A tender moment between brothers, a bonding moment for all three of us, and absolute rubbish ... I never gave Willy that ring because it wasn't mine to give. He already had it."
2011: The brothers start drifting apart after Prince William marries Princess Catherine
Prince Harry and Princess Catherine's relationship was always special, but in his memoir "Spare," Harry recalled how he felt like he lost his brother the day he married Catherine. In the book, he admits how he can't remember much of the ceremony, only that Catherine looked gorgeous in her wedding dress. But while the day was a joyous one for everyone else, Harry felt like it was a final farewell to the brother he used to know.
"[It felt like] yet another farewell under this horrid roof [and] another sundering," he wrote. He recalled how he knew, deep inside, that the good times he and Prince William had together as unmarried men were over for good. "We'd never again ride together across the Lesotho countryside with capes blowing behind us. We'd never again share a horsey-smelling cottage while learning to fly. Who shall separate us? Life, that's who," Harry wrote. He added that the William who walked out of Westminster Abbey the morning of his nuptials wasn't the same William he'd escorted to the church that same morning. "He'd never again be first and foremost Willy," Harry explained. As his brother left the church with Catherine, Harry recalled thinking "Goodbye," as the couple got into their waiting carriage.
2017: William tells Harry he's moving too fast with Meghan
While the dynamic between Prince William and Prince Harry changed after the former got married, the brothers appeared to remain close. There weren't really any rumors about feuds or disagreements after William's wedding, and Harry was often seen attending public engagements with his brother and Catherine. But everything changed when Harry started dating Meghan Markle.
Apparently, William wasn't too keen on the idea of Harry marrying an American actress and apparently told his younger brother that he'd only be inviting a slew of problems into his life. "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,'" Harry wrote in his memoir "Spare." He recalled knowing that he wanted to marry Meghan a year after they started dating, and William, who dated Catherine on-and-off for eight years, thought Harry was moving way too fast. "It's too fast, he told me," Harry wrote. "Too soon. In fact, he'd actually been pretty discouraging about my even dating Meg." When William confronted Harry with his concerns, the latter didn't take to it too kindly, according to some sources. "Harry is very protective and quite rightly so," a palace source told People.
2017: Harry confronts William about the cold shoulder he is giving Meghan
Prince Harry is known for his penchant to break royal rules, and one significant tradition he failed to stick to was when he asked Queen Elizabeth II in 2017 whether he could bring his then-fiancé Meghan Markle to Sandringham for the holidays. The queen agreed, even though fiancés had never been allowed at the celebrations previously. It was at this gathering that Harry confronted Prince William about his behavior toward Meghan, and the two had it out until they drew the attention of their father, King Charles III. "Harry felt William wasn't rolling out the red carpet for Meghan and told him so. They had a bit of a fall out which was only resolved when Charles stepped in and asked William to make an effort," royal reporter Katie Nicholl wrote in a piece for Vanity Fair. As a result, William and Princess Catherine invited Harry and Meghan to spend Christmas with them as a means to put all the squabbling behind them.
Sources told Nicholl that conflict had been brewing between William and Harry for some time before the confrontation, and this fallout turned out to be the first of many.
2020: William loses his cool with Harry after he announces his departure from the royal family
Since his shocking announcement in 2020 that he would be taking a step back from his royal duties, we have since learned the real reason Prince Harry left the royal family — and it was largely because of the treatment his wife, Meghan Markle, had to endure from the British press. But it won't be too far-fetched to assume that Harry's ongoing feud with Prince William was also a deciding factor. In his Netflix docuseries, "Harry & Meghan," Harry revealed that William wasn't supportive of his decision to leave the monarchy. He recalled how he and Meghan tried to have a meeting with the royal family but that it was rejected. It was only after Meghan and Prince Archie went back to Canada that the palace called a meeting. "It was clear to me that they planned out so that [Meghan wasn't] in the room," Harry recalled.
The meeting, which lasted about 90 minutes, wasn't very productive. Harry was trying to convince the palace to allow him to be a part-time working royal — he could do his own thing but still support the queen — but they weren't having it, especially William. "It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that simply weren't true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in," Harry recalled.
2021: Harry insinuates his family is racist in interviews
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview put the palace, and as a result, Prince William, in a pretty bad light. Not only did Meghan and Harry tell Winfrey that some royal family members were concerned about how dark Prince Archie's skin color would be, but Harry also said that his family has an "unconscious bias" in the "Harry & Meghan" Netflix docuseries. Harry included himself in that statement when he spoke to Anderson Cooper ahead of his memoir's release, saying he became more aware of his own biases after he started dating Meghan.
Harry also revealed in his memoir "Spare" that he grew up hearing his family members calling Asian cadets a racist slur, and that he had no idea that the word was racist at the time and used it himself. "I didn't know [it] was an insult. When I was little, I'd heard lots of people use that word and had never seen anyone scowl or seem upset, and I'd never considered those people [using the word] to be racists," he wrote. After realizing his mistake, he apologized personally to the cadet he insulted.
2021: Harry and William have another spat after Prince Philip's funeral
There's no doubt that a Prince William and Prince Harry reconciliation could benefit the monarchy, so when the two brothers were spotted walking together and making small talk at Prince Philip's funeral in 2021, hopes were high that they might finally make peace. Unfortunately, the show of unity was only for the cameras, because Harry and William got into a nasty fight after the funeral proceedings.
In "Spare," Harry likened his and William's fallout to a duel. He said that he had promised himself he wouldn't get involved in another fight, but William had other plans. His brother insisted that he had no idea why Harry decided to leave the royal family with Meghan, and Harry found it astonishing that his brother could be so clueless. "Staggering. But maybe it was true," he wrote. "And if they didn't know why I'd left, maybe they just didn't know me. At all. And maybe they never really did."
2022: William snubs Harry at the Platinum Jubilee
When news broke that Prince Harry would be attending Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee in 2022, pundits expected royal snubs to be plenty, and Prince William did not disappoint.
Rumors were rife that Harry had reached out to William to have a talk during his visit to the U.K., but apparently William broke the olive branch Harry extended. The reason? He was still mad about Harry spilling palace secrets in all the interviews he granted after leaving the monarchy and was wary of speaking to him, lest snippets of their conversation made it into Harry's next interview. "Things are still fraught — William is still wary of spending any time alone with Harry as you never quite know what may be reported back afterwards," an insider told Page Six.
Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly invited William, Princess Catherine, and their children to Lilibet's first birthday party during their U.K. visit, but neither attended, citing their Jubilee obligations as the reason. Still, it was hard to believe that they couldn't pop in even once.
2023: Harry puts William in a bad light in his tell-all memoir
It's likely that no one dreaded Prince Harry's much-anticipated memoir quite as much as Prince William — and he was right to worry. "Spare," Harry's explosive book, didn't exactly put his brother in a good light. The prince dropped bombshells left and right, and detailed a heated fight he and William had over Meghan Markle. According to Harry, his brother stopped by at his royal residence and the two got into an argument when William called Meghan "difficult, rude, [and] abrasive." Harry instantly got upset, accusing his brother of sounding like the British press. During an interview with Anderson Cooper, Harry said that he and William got into a shouting match and that it felt like his brother was "coming for my wife" (via People).
Things got very heated, and before Harry quite knew what hit him, William had him by the collar. "[He ripped] my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor," Harry wrote in "Spare." "I landed on the dog's bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out." During his interview with Cooper, Harry said that William later apologized. "It was a pretty nasty experience," he said.
2024: William fails to meet with Harry during his visit to King Charles III
When news of King Charles III's cancer diagnosis broke, many pundits and royal experts expressed their hope that Charles' illness would finally be the thing that brings Prince Harry and Prince William back together. "They can use this as a starting point. The consensus is that life is too short, and there's hope this will lead to repairing the rift," a source told Us Weekly.
After Charles announced his cancer diagnosis to the public, Harry hopped on a plane to visit his father. He and the monarch's meeting lasted under an hour, according to reports, and apparently not so much as a hello took place between Harry and William during the 24 hours Harry spent in the U.K., which was disappointing, to say the least. Royal author Sally Bedell Smith told AP News that pundits shouldn't get their hopes up. "There are some very, very deep, hurts (Harry) has inflicted on the family," she said.
2024: William once again fails to meet with Harry during another visit to the U.K.
When Harry paid the U.K. another visit in May 2024 for the anniversary of the Invictus Games, many couldn't help but hope that he would reconcile with Prince William this time around, especially given Princess Catherine's cancer diagnosis. Alas, royal insiders revealed that William was adamant that he didn't want to meet with his brother, let alone allow him near his sick wife. "William and Catherine felt completely betrayed by Harry's memoir ("Spare"). They don't speak to Harry and Meghan, and they are certainly not about to start when Catherine is at her most vulnerable," a friend of the Wales couple told the Daily Beast. Needless to say, no meeting between the estranged brothers took place.
Speaking to Fox News, royal author Christopher Andersen said that, even though Harry has expressed a desire to visit Catherine, relations between the two brothers won't allow for this to happen anytime soon. "There was just too much drama between the brothers and their wives, and there is lingering bitterness on everyone's part," Andersen said. He added that a reconciliation between Harry and William remains very unlikely.