After the Oprah Interview, Prince William and King Charles Agreed They’d Never Meet with Prince Harry Alone Again, New Book Claims

(Image credit: Getty)

published 8 April 2023

A new book about the royals calls Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s March 2021 sit-down with Oprah Winfrey a “chilling new low” in Harry’s relationship with his brother, Prince William, and father, King Charles—a relationship that, unfortunately, has only worsened since. After the Oprah interview, according to excerpts of veteran royal correspondent Robert Jobson’s new book Our King, William devised a “drastic strategy” because he had “lost all trust,” The Mirror reports.

“In the aftermath, William went to his father and told him that the royal family needed a clear strategy in dealing with the renegade royals,” Jobson writes in the book. “Charles agreed.”

The royals decided to no longer treat Harry as a trusted royal—meaning they would never meet with him alone and would always have another person in the room with them.

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“Not only had Harry heavily implied to Oprah that a member of the family was racist, but he’d had the gall to claim that his father and brother knew they were ‘trapped’ in their royal roles—‘and I have huge compassion for that,’ he had added, twisting the knife,” Jobson writes. “Both Charles and William had been extremely upset by Harry’s arrogance, aghast at his lack of discretion and furious that he’d had the audacity to speak about their supposed feelings.”

Our King also said of the September 10 Windsor Castle walkabout with William, wife Kate, Harry, and wife Meghan that the Princess of Wales said it was “one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do,” Marie Claire reported earlier today. Among the book’s other explosive claims, Jobson writes that Her late Majesty had the room swept for bugs before the infamous Sandringham Summit, and refused to let Meghan join through a video link because it wasn’t thought to be secure. The Queen also thought her grandson Harry was “so consumed” by his love for Meghan that it was “clouding his judgment,” Jobson writes.

The book also reveals that Charles was frustrated at Harry’s “bad manners” in 2016 for releasing a statement confirming his relationship with Meghan but demanding they be left alone—and overshadowing Charles’ Gulf tour in the process, and that Her late Majesty was mystified by Harry and Meghan’s public criticisms of the monarchy and members of the royal family and described their behavior as “quite mad.”

Our King is out April 13.

Our King by Robert Jobson

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.