Royalist is The Daily Beast’s newsletter for all things royal. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.
There’s fresh evidence that the outstanding characteristics displayed by Prince Harry and Prince William in the course of their feud are childish petulance.
For it emerges that Prince Harry has reportedly made no effort to reach out to his brother Prince William during his and Meghan’s trip to the U.K. because he is angry at William’s failure to “unpack” his part in the “dark times” Harry and his wife endured before leaving the royal family.
ADVERTISEMENT
William, meanwhile, is waiting for Harry to apologize for the whole slagging-the-family-off-to-billions-of-people-to-Oprah situation.
And guess what?
Neither of them plans to make the first move—despite both of them living so close to each other while Harry and Meghan are in the U.K.
News of the fresh non-development by the puerile princes was made by the writer Omid Scobie, who wrote a sympathetic biography of Harry and Meghan, for which he was briefed by their team. He is thought to be close to the Sussex machine and has in the past tweeted the Sussex line, which has led to him being described as a mouthpiece or unofficial spokesperson for Team Sussex.
Scobie, writing on Yahoo!, quoted “someone familiar with the current family dynamics” as having told him: “There’s a laughable effort to suggest the [Sussexes] have been shunned… the true story is, they never reached out to the Cambridges.”
Scobie quoted a “senior palace aide” as saying that “certain family members” (for which read: William and Kate) have not “had a say in the matter” of whether or not they would meet.
Scobie quotes a “family friend” as saying, “People are desperate for steps to be made but behind the scenes; there hasn’t been movement… What [Harry] is waiting for is accountability… Many lines were crossed by William. He was at the center of a number of painful moments, be it the actions of his own staff or turning his back when support was needed. It was a dark time and one that, so far, William has been unprepared to unpack.”
Scobie says that the same friend told him William is “still waiting” for Harry to apologize for publicizing family secrets.
Here at The Daily Beast, we would refer you to a June 23 piece of analysis by The Royalist in which we observed:
The failure of William to smooth things over with his brother speaks deeply to one of the defining character traits of the Windsor clan: obstinacy.
To be fair, the obstinacy is on both sides.
Harry is waiting for his apology, but William’s view, put simply, is that he is not the one who needs to apologize. He is not the one who committed the ultimate crime of snitching on the family to the media.
And so both brothers, so physically close to each other and with time on their hands to meet face to face, are instead apart, seething.
