Prince William came under fire earlier this year when Prince Harry revealed many strained facets of their relationship. The Prince of Wales’s rivalry with his younger brother dominated the latter’s memoir Spare, with the Duke of Sussex recounting their experiences as bereaved boys, troubled teens, warring royals, and eventual “arch-nemeses”. Harry described a physical altercation between the pair, which allegedly ensued over his wife Meghan Markle. The revelations put a spotlight on William’s long-reported temper and painted the future King in an unfortunate light. Now, the Prince of Wales’s biographer has shed more light on the heir’s character.
Robert Jobson, author of William at 40, was a guest on last week’s episode of Hello! Magazine’s A Right Royal Podcast.
He indicated that the Prince has both a private and a public character, claiming it is a need must “for anyone in the public eye”.
Describing William as “strong and determined,” Mr Jobson explained, while William can be “protective”, he can often come across as “a bit blunt”.
He said: “Protective is a good way [to put it] as attractive but I think his manner with people can sometimes be a bit blunt.”
READ MORE: Kate ‘feeling quite bruised’ by Harry despite ‘going out of way’ not to react
The Duke of Sussex gave his version of the infamous bridesmaid dress row between Kate and Meghan, indicating that cultural differences set the two Duchesses apart and, in part, blamed the Prince and Princess of Wales for his controversial costume choice in the Noughties.
While William has maintained a dignified silence, some commentators have suggested that the Prince is reeling over Harry’s comments, particularly those about Kate.
During an appearance on an episode of the Royally Us podcast last month, royal biographer Angela Levin said: “I don’t think you should invade somebody’s privacy like that. That’s not Harry telling his story, it is invading other people’s stories that they don’t want to be told.
“Brothers do fight…Unlike a father and a son, brothers can fall out in a big way because they don’t want to take the nonsense. They don’t want to take all that. And I think Harry’s gone too far. He’s been quite rude about Catherine and he knows that would enrage William.”
Both William and Harry are “very protective of their wives,” according to the BBC’s former royal correspondent Jennie Bond, who spoke to GB News Breakfast about the brothers’ alleged heated altercation in January.
The publication of Spare was not the first time Kate had been the subject of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s revelations, with the couple first speaking out about the Princess during their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Meghan refuted the longheld belief that she had made Kate cry in the lead-up to her and Harry’s wedding in May 2019, explaining that it was the other way around. The Duke later corroborated these claims in his book, claiming he found his wife “sobbing on the floor” after an argument between her and his sister-in-law.
At the time, reports suggested William felt that Kate was “massively disrespected” by Meghan when she told Oprah about the incident.
A friend reportedly told the Daily Mail that William is very “protective” of Kate and claimed he was insistent on avoiding the problems that affected his mother and father.
“They are so tight, just inseparable. When you speak to William, he’s actually quite puritanical in his attitude when he talks about his parents’ marriage and what went wrong,” they said.
“It hugely affected the way he approached his own relationship with Catherine and why it took so long for him to settle down. He wanted it to be with the right person and (for it to last) forever.
“William is still very protective of his wife. The way he sees it, she is as important to the institution as he is. He genuinely admires the way she has just dug her heels in and stuck with it.”
