After last week’s bombshell announcement that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are temporarily relocating to Britain, royal watchers have been wondering how this will change relations between the couple and the Royal Family, especially Prince William. But there’s another family member the Duke of Sussex has had a complicated relationship with over the years.
Queen Camilla has been married to King Charles since 2005, and although Harry publicly spoke out in support of their marriage at the time, he revealed his real feelings both in his 2023 memoir, Spare, and during a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper the same year.
In Spare, the Duke of Sussex wrote that Camilla “sacrificed” him “on her personal PR altar” in an attempt to improve her image with the British public, adding, “I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy.”
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Prince Harry joins (from left) Prince William, King Charles, Queen Camilla, Laura Lopes and Tom Parker Bowles on Charles and Camilla’s 2005 wedding day.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Queen Camilla and Prince Harry attend Trooping the Colour 2015.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
When Cooper asked how Queen Camilla had been “dangerous” at the time, the Duke of Sussex explained it was “because of the connections that she was forging within the British press” as she tried to “rehabilitate her image.”
“And there was open willingness on both sides to trade information,” Prince Harry added, adding, “with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.”
After Spare’s release, The Queen was personally hurt, as one of her palace companions, Lady Lansdowne, told the Times.
Queen Camilla is pictured driving to church on Sunday, August 23.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“Of course it bothers her, of course it hurts,” Lady Lansdowne said. “But she doesn’t let it get to her. Her philosophy is always, ‘Don’t make a thing of it and it will settle down—least said, soonest mended.’”
It seems as if their relationship could be slowly on the way toward mending. Although The Queen wasn’t present when Prince Harry reunited with his father last fall, she took a major step by joining Harry, Meghan and their children at Highgrove House when the Sussexes visited the U.K. in July.
A source calls the meeting “polite with no recrimination,” per author Tom Bower in the Daily Mail, sharing that Queen Camilla allegedly offered Harry tea and that “the goodwill shown calmed the Sussexes’ fear of returning.”
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