New book by Prince Harry biographer reveals ‘no going back’ in relationship with brother William

A new media bomb may be about to explode in the House of Windsor. After Netflix’s controversial docuseries about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Spare, Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir, the tense relationship between Charles III’s youngest son and the rest of the family, and especially with his brother William, heir to the British throne, may be getting even more heated. But this time it was not Harry’s own words that caused alarm bells to go off at Buckingham Palace. Omid Scobie, British royal correspondent and a person who is close to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, is to blame. In his new book, Endgame, which will hit bookstores worldwide on November 28 and excerpts of which were published by People, the author speaks with certainty about the fact that there is “no going back” in the relationship between the Duke of Sussex and his brother. The journalist offers new information about Prince Harry’s journey to the deathbed of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 8, 2022. “William ignored him,” said a family source. “He clearly didn’t want to see his brother.”

The discomfort between the two brothers has worsened in recent months and their relationship is now “cold” and marked by indifference, according to the new book. Heir-to-the-throne William has prioritized his loyalty to the monarchy, even quietly cooperating with the U.K. press to undermine Harry, according to Scobie as quoted by People. The sources that provided information for Endgame, according to its author, are close to the Windsors, and admit that among the members of the court Prince Harry is known as a “defector.”

Scobie chronicles the breakup of the British royal family as the weakening of the modern monarchy: ““In the eyes of some within the institution, Harry is a threat to the crown. His freedom to exert his own thinking outside of the confines of the institution has made him the enemy.” Therefore, for the brothers, there is “no going back.”

Prince William strongly believes that Harry and Meghan took the path of individualism. Something that took the family by surprise, even Queen Elizabeth. The expression “Oh so California” has gone viral among close friends of the Prince of Wales to mock the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s decision to move to the United States after resigning as active members of the British crown. A source close to the future king of the United Kingdom states in the book that William no longer recognizes his brother and believes he has been brainwashed by an “army of therapists.”

Prince Harry was always very close to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, and has highlighted on multiple occasions the beautiful relationship they had until her death at Balmoral Palace (Scotland), at the age of 96. Scobie wanted to offer a vision of how traumatic the hours before the monarch’s death, and the days that preceded her funeral, were for the Duke of Sussex. Harry and Meghan reportedly learned of her death through the BBC, and not from their own family. A friend of the duke comments on it in the book: “His relationship with the Queen was everything to him. She would have wanted him to know before it went out to the world. They could have waited just a little longer, it would have been nothing in the grand scheme of things, but no one respected that at all.”

When the duke left California on May 5, 2023 to attend the coronation of his father, Charles III — he only witnessed the ceremony at Westminster Abbey and a few hours later he left for the United States — the book says that he had a knot in his stomach upon landing in London. “Though he hasn’t found closure with his family, he’s accepted that things are unlikely to change, particularly with his brother,” writes the journalist. It is not the first time that Scobie, considered an unofficial spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex due to his closeness to the couple, has published a book full of information about the state of the U.K. monarchy. In 2021, Finding Freedom revealed the conversations and intimacies of Harry and Meghan prior to their departure to California.

The first fragments of Scobie’s new book have been released in the wake of the 75th birthday of King Charles III. The British newspaper The Telegraph confirmed that Harry and Meghan spoke by phone with the monarch to congratulate him. This represents progress in the father-son relationship, strongly affected by the Duke’s statements in his Netflix documentary and in his book.

Although no sign of rapprochement has been in the news at the moment, a source cited in the book as a “close friend of Harry’s” said that the prince is prepared for a possible reconciliation: “I’m ready to move on past it. Whether we get an apology or accountability, who knows? Who really cares at this point?”

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