Prince Harry Allegedly Won’t Attend Prince Charles’ Coronation If It’s at Westminster Abbey

At the moment, the pressing question of “will he, or won’t he?” lies in Prince Harry’s decision to attend this June’s Platinum Jubilee or not, which will honor the Queen’s 70 years on the throne.

But, down the line in the (we hope) far distant future, will the Duke of Sussex attend his father, Prince Charles’, and his stepmother Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall’s coronation? (As Marie Claire previously reported, the two will supposedly be crowned side-by-side after the Queen’s groundbreaking announcement earlier this year that it was her wish for Camilla to be Queen Consort.) According to OK!, not if it is at a certain location.

According to Private Eye, per OK!, Harry won’t attend the coronation of his father and stepmother if it is held at Westminster Abbey, out of respect for his late mother, Princess Diana, whose funeral was held there in 1997. (She is buried on an island on a lake on the grounds of the Spencer family home, Althorp.) For context, Queen Elizabeth’s 1953 coronation was held at Westminster Abbey.

“He doesn’t want Camilla to be queen; he’s very angry that it’s happening,” says Tina Brown, author of the recently released The Palace Papers, on Harry’s reaction to the Queen’s announcement about Camilla. “He has not made his peace with it, and he probably never will.”

(For those new to the royal party and not fastidious watchers of The Crown, Charles and Camilla carried on an extramarital affair throughout the course of Charles and Diana’s marriage, which spanned from 1981 to their separation in 1992 and later divorce in 1996. After Diana’s death in 1997, Charles and Camilla eventually married in 2005.)

“After the reports she was involved in his parents’ marriage and then stepped into Diana’s shoes as Charles’ wife, I suspect Camilla will be in his sights [for Harry’s upcoming memoir], so I’d say Harry’s set to reveal any Camilla secrets,” Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell told Closer. “He’s already said he enjoys The Crown, which painted Camilla as the ‘wicked stepmother’ in a way.”

One insider claimed Harry has always held a grudge against Camilla, quoting the prince as having told a friend “She got her claws into my dad and never let go for an instant. That’s why my mom died—because she fled to Paris instead of being safe with her family.”

Of Camilla and Harry’s relationship, another source says “He didn’t take kindly to Camilla. This was the woman who had stepped into his late mother’s shoes and Harry was not about to welcome her as a future stepmother. He was often overpolite and generally cool towards Camilla. And the more he learned about his dad’s affair with her, the more distant he became. It took Harry years to accept her but, like William, as he grew up, he realized that his father’s happiness must come before his own feelings.”

No wonder seeing her crowned Queen Consort in the same location where his beloved mother’s funeral took place might just be too much.