Prince Harry once revealed he felt “heartbroken” after his brother, Prince William, broke a “pact” they had made based on their experience growing up watching their father.
The Duke said they made an agreement not to let their offices trade negative press stories about each other.
In his Netflix docuseries titled “Harry & Meghan”, he claimed he felt “heartbroken” after learning that his brother’s office had been putting out negative briefings about him.
He said: “William and I both saw what happened in our dad’s office and we made an agreement that we would never let that happen to our office.”
The 38-year-old claimed the negative briefings started after he and his wife Meghan Markle returned from a successful 2018 tour of Australia and they were all down to “jealousy” and “competition”, The Mirror reports.
He admitted: “I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game or business of trading and to see my brother’s office doing the same thing that we promised the two of us would never, ever do, that was heartbreaking.”
According to Prince Harry, “the issue is when someone who’s marrying in, who should be a supporting act is then stealing the limelight or is doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people.”
He added: “It shifts the balance because you’ve been led to believe that the only way that your charities can succeed and the only way that your reputation can be grown or improved is if you’re the front page of those newspapers.”
The royal claimed that the press office for one member of the royal family will give journalists negative stories about another member in order to keep embarrassing news about their “principal” off the front pages.
“There’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories. So, if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principle, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principle,” he explained.
Harry added: “So the offices end up working against each other. It’s kind of a weird understanding or acceptance that happens. And you can always say, ‘I didn’t know about this.’ Or, ‘This would never happen. Are you suggesting that I condone this?’ It’s like no, but what I am asking is have you done anything to stop it? And the answer is no.”
