Prince Harry has widely opened up about his relationship with his older brother, Prince William, and once claimed their brotherly bond was similar to that of his two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
Whilst the Duke of Sussex may now not be ‘on speaking terms’ with the heir to the throne, it hasn’t always been this way.
Their relationship took a big hit when Harry started publicly speaking about his life within the Royal Family as well as their issues through a series of interviews, his and Meghan Markle’s Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan and his memoir, Spare.
In 2023, and while promoting Spare, Harry spoke about how after having Archie, four and Lilibet, two, he can now understand better the dynamic he held with William.
The Sussex children were born two years apart – Archie in 2019 and Lilibet in 2021, and share a similar age gap to Harry and William who were also born two years apart (1984 and 1982 respectively).
During an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby ahead of his memoir’s release, Harry said: “The gap between me and William is very similar to Archie and Lili. And to see Lili obsessed with Archie and Archie like ‘no, no Lili, I need my space, I need my space,’ now I get it.
“I get how irritating the younger sibling can be to the older sibling. But in the moment, at the time, I didn’t. I didn’t really grasp that, I didn’t really realise it.”
Meanwhile, in Spare, Harry elaborated more on the fraternal relationship, alleging that William would ignore him when they both attended Eton Collage.
He told Bradby: “I talk about the relationship between William and myself at Eton and the fact that he didn’t really want to know me. You know, as the younger brother that sucks. It’s like: ‘Come on, like you left me at Ludgrove [School] and now I’m here at Eton, like hey, now we’re at the same school, let’s go.’ He didn’t want anything to do with me. And that hurt at the time.”
Elsewhere, in the book, Harry accused William of physically attacking him during a confrontation with Meghan in 2019.
The duke said they were all at his home in London when William called Meghan “rude”, “difficult” and “abrasive”, a criticism Harry described as “parrot[ing of] the press narrative”.
He alleged that the argument became more heated before William “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and… knocked me to the floor”.
The prince also claimed that the altercation left him with a visible injury on his back due to him falling onto a dog’s bowl and breaking it.
