William and Kate Have ‘Zero Interest’ in Seeing Harry and Meghan: Friend

The naming of Kate Middleton as one of the alleged “royal racists” means Kate and Prince William will never reconcile with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, a friend of William and Kate’s told The Daily Beast.

While King Charles is expected to continue to maintain cordial relations with his son, and contact with his grandchildren, William and Kate will have “zero interest” in ever seeing Harry and Meghan again, the friend said.

The friend admitted they had “no idea” before this week’s revelation that Kate was being referred to by Meghan Markle when she told Oprah Winfrey that a family member had raised “concerns” about “how dark” Archie’s skin might be.

They said they were “as shocked as everyone else” by the dramatic developments this week, which saw the king and Kate named as the individuals in question in a Dutch-language version of Omid Scobie’s new book, Endgame.

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However they added, “It has been clear for a long time to anyone who knows them that they don’t want to see Harry and Meghan. Now we know why. They will have zero interest in ever seeing them again.”

Although Meghan’s camp has briefed the Telegraph that she did not leak the letter to Scobie, the suspicion that she did is widespread among royal insiders.

One former courtier told The Daily Beast: “It is pretty obvious that detail on the contents of a letter between two people would have to come from one of those people, and it’s hard to see Charles sharing it.”

The Sun has previously reported that palace insiders believe Meghan did share the contents of the letter, citing sources as saying: “That letter is under lock and key and no one from within the king’s circle would’ve briefed anyone about its contents. In all likelihood, it must have been the Sussex camp which leaked the names. It’s a nasty and deliberate attack.”

Complicating this notion, however, is the fact that the names were clearly never meant to be published in Scobie’s book. Despite the conspiracy theories about the “error” being a deliberate ploy to boost sales, the appearance of the names in an obscure version of the book, with Scobie clearly caught unprepared by the development, suggests this is far more likely to be a publishing cock-up. It seems possible that while other editions may have been legaled, and the names and associated passages edited with certain things removed, the draft sent to Holland was an earlier one.

Also, it was the Daily Telegraph that first reported on the existence of the series of letters between Meghan and Charles about unconscious bias in the family in April this year. The information in the Telegraph seemed to come from the Sussex camp, with a source cited as saying that Meghan felt she had “not received a satisfactory response” to her concerns—but no names were published.

It's quite possible Scobie, a very competent journalist despite the endless trashing of him by some sections of the British media, found them out himself from a non-Meghan source, but not having the hard evidence in hand decided, or was advised, to cut the names.

However the names came to be published, though, it ultimately won’t make a huge difference to the dramatic fracturing of the relationship between Harry and his family, especially his brother.

In the royals’ eyes, the hunt would never have begun had not Meghan said in her interview with Oprah Winfrey: “In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time, so we have in tandem the conversation of ‘He won’t be given security. He’s not going to be given a title,’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”

But, of course, Meghan would never have said it had the comments not been made in the first place, so inevitably, perhaps, attention will now turn to the context in which the remarks were made.

The only person to claim to publicly know any of this context is the New York Times best-selling author Christopher Andersen, who wrote in a 2021 book that the remark was made by then Prince Charles to his wife Camilla within earshot of his servants over breakfast.

Andersen’s book, Brothers And Wives: Inside The Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry and Meghan, said that on the day Harry and Meghan publicly announced their engagement, Charles asked his wife, Camilla, “I wonder what the children look like?”

A “somewhat taken-aback” Camilla apparently replied, “Well, absolutely gorgeous, I’m certain.”

Charles allegedly lowered his voice and asked, “I mean, what do you think their children’s complexion might be?”

Andersen told The Daily Beast at the time that the remarks were the “innocent musings of a grandfather” that were “twisted over time by palace operatives into something far more racially charged and toxic, so by the time it reached Harry he was shocked at what he was hearing. When Harry complained to his father, Charles suggested that he was being oversensitive.”

The claim was met with a dismissive reaction by Charles’ office at the time the book was published.

Andersen, told The Daily Beast on Friday: “It was exactly two years ago that I revealed in my book Brothers and Wives that Charles made the controversial comments. But I have to underscore now, as I did then, that these were the innocent remarks of a loving grandfather speculating on what a new grandchild might look like—nothing more than that.

“Those benign comments made even before Harry and Meghan were married were overheard, misinterpreted, wildly contorted, and spun into something quite toxic to be used to stir up trouble between the Sussexes and the rest of the royal family.

“There’s always been a great deal of scheming behind the scenes, and unfortunately the royals themselves are often caught in the middle. It’s easy to see now why there is such animosity between Harry and Meghan on one side and William and Charles on the other. Sadly, no one seems willing to bend. Both sides have dug in. I don’t see reconciliation on the horizon, and I certainly don’t see them all gathered around the Christmas tree at Sandringham singing carols together.”

Did Charles recognize how his words could be interpreted? That might explain an intriguing comment made by Scobie, who said in one interview conducted before the names had been published: “The names were mentioned in letters between Meghan and Charles that were exchanged sometime after the Oprah interview. We know from sources that Charles was horrified that that’s how Meghan felt… He wanted to, sort of as a representative of his family, have that conversation with her, and that’s why, I personally think, that they have been able to move forward with some kind of line of communication afterwards, though they may not see eye to eye on it.”

Scobie added that Harry is in contact with his father, but not his brother.

This, then, is probably be the future of the fractured royal family: a strained relationship between the Sussexes and the king, with occasional birthday phone calls, and none at all between the Sussexes and the Cambridges.

As Duncan Larcombe, royal author and former royal editor at The Sun, told The Daily Beast: “Whatever tiny hope of reconciliation there was between Harry and William is now gone. But I think, oddly enough, there will be a certain sense of relief in the palace this weekend, actually, because the final truth bomb has been dropped, and it’s a damp squib.

“The dust will settle and the royals will move on. They are fortunate this didn’t come out two years ago when the Oprah interview was screened because back then Harry and Meghan’s stock, and credibility was riding high. People watched that interview with wide eyes. They still watch them, but now they are rolling their eyes thinking, ‘Oh crikey, here we go again.’”