Prince William grabbed his younger brother Harry and threw him to the floor during a heated confrontation over Meghan Markle, the younger prince is set to claim in his forthcoming autobiography, according to The Guardian, which obtained a copy of the widely anticipated tome.
The argument at Harry’s London home in 2019 reportedly escalated after William said the younger prince’s wife was “difficult,” “rude,” and “abrasive.” The two traded insults, with Harry, feeling menaced, eventually retreating into the kitchen. William followed him.
“Willy, I can’t speak to you when you’re like this,” Harry said after handing his brother a glass of water.
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The Prince of Wales then “set down the water, called me another name, then came at me,” Harry writes, according to The Guardian. “It all happened so fast. So very fast.”
“He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. 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.”
Harry goes on to claim that William tried to goad him into fighting back, but when the younger man refused to do so, William left the room. He eventually returned “looking regretful, and apologized.”
Before taking his leave, William reportedly turned to say, “You don’t need to tell Meg about this.”
“You mean that you attacked me?” Harry shot back, he writes.
“I didn’t attack you, Harold.”
Alone, Harry then called his therapist.
The assault, according to Harry, left him with “scrapes and bruises” on his back—visible injuries that Markle later noticed. His wife was not surprised, but “terribly sad,” according to the Duke of Sussex.
William had come to Harry, who was then living on the grounds of Kensington Palace in Nottingham Cottage, wanting to discuss “the whole rolling catastrophe” of his relationship with the Suits actor. But the Prince of Wales arrived already “piping hot,” according to Harry.
The detailed encounter—one of many included in Spare, according to The Guardian—is unlikely to defrost the icy relations between the Sussexes, who wed in 2018, and the senior royals.
Last week, a source suggested to The Sunday Times that Harry all but rakes his brother over the coals in the book. “I personally can’t see how Harry and William can reconcile after this,” the insider said.
The book is expected to treat Harry’s father, King Charles, with a lighter touch. In an excerpt published by The Guardian, the monarch is weary as he looks over his embittered sons in the wake of Prince Phillip’s funeral.
“Please, boys,” Harry recalls his father saying. “Don’t make my final years a misery.”
A recurring theme of Harry’s ongoing press tour, however, has been his desire to reconcile with his family. “I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back,” Harry told the ITV network in a clip from an interview that will air on Sunday evening.
But in another clip from a separate talk with CBS’ 60 Minutes, the estranged royal adds, “There becomes a point when silence is betrayal.”
Buckingham Palace had not formally responded to Harry’s words as of Wednesday.
Harry’s memoir, Spare, is set to hit shelves on Jan. 10.
Read it at The Guardian
