Volume II of Harry & Meghan offers a frank snapshot of Prince Harry and Prince William’s strained relationship after Harry and Duchess Meghan announced they were stepping down as senior members of the royal family.
Shortly after the couple’s announcement in January 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex faced a media frenzy. Reports claimed they blindsided Queen Elizabeth II with their royal exit and accused them of saying they were pushed out of the institution.
"I’d sent an email to the three most senior private secretaries saying, ‘Let’s have a meeting. Let’s get together and have a meeting. Let’s talk about this.’ Because what was happening, what was playing out in public, was crazy," Harry says. "That meeting was rejected."
Meghan left the United Kingdom to return to Canada, where their son, Archie, was. "It was only once Meg had left and gone back to Canada that it was then arranged that there was going to be a meeting at Sandringham on the following Monday," Harry says.
"Imagine a conversation, a roundtable discussion, about the future of your life when the stakes are this high, and you as the mom and the wife and the target in many regards aren’t invited to have a seat at the table," Meghan says.
Harry replies, "It was clear to me that they’d planned it so that you weren’t in the room."
Despite Meghan’s absence, Harry attended the meeting to advocate for his and Meghan’s goal to represent the queen and the Commonwealth outside of England.
"It became very clear very quickly that goal was not up for discussion or debate," he recalls. "It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren’t true, and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in. But you have to understand that, from the family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate sort of mission, goal-slash-responsibility is the institution. People around her are telling her, ‘By the way, that proposal, or these two doing X, Y, Zed is going to be seen as an attack on the institution.’ Then she’s gonna go on the advice that she’s given."
He adds, "It was really hard. That meeting finished without any solidified action plan. I think from their perspective, they had to believe that it was more about us and maybe the issues that we had, as opposed to their partner, the media, and themselves and that relationship that was causing so much pain for us. They saw what they wanted to see."
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Harry then candidly explains how the conflict has affected his relationship with his older brother.
"The saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side. Part of that, I get," the duke says. "That’s his inheritance. So to some extent, it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and the continuation of this institution."
When tabloids soon after published a story claiming Harry and Meghan left due to bullying at William’s behest, Harry says that a joint statement denying those allegations was released without his permission.
"Once I got in the car after the meeting, I was told about a joint statement that had been put out in my name and my brother’s name squashing the story about him bullying us out of the family," he says. "I couldn’t believe it. No one had asked me. No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that. And I rang M and I told her, and she burst into floods of tears, because within four hours, they were happy to lie to protect my brother, and yet for three years, they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us."
Meghan then says, "Suddenly, what clicked in my head was, ‘It’s never gonna stop.’ Every rumor, every negative thing, every lie, everything that I knew wasn’t true and that the palace knew wasn’t true and internally they knew wasn’t true, that was just being allowed to fester."
Harry concludes, "So there was no other option at this point. I said, ‘We need to get out of here.’"
