Apparently, it took only 12 words for King Charles III to start “shouting” at Prince William and Prince Harry. According to Spare, the princes approached their father, who is referred to as “Pa” in the 2023 memoir and regarded to have a temper, about someone in his camp planting stories in the press. One question from the Prince of Wales and the king accused his sons of being “paranoid.
In his memoir, the Duke of Sussex opened up about the friction between him, William, and their father due to stories allegedly planted by staff.
He recalled joining William “for moral support” when he “confronted” King Charles about it at Clarence House, his longtime London, England, home (via Spare).
The heir to the throne broached the subject, mentioning an unnamed woman on the king’s communications team whom he and Harry thought was planting stories about them and their families in the press.
“Willy,” Harry wrote, “put it to Pa: How can you be letting a stranger do this to your sons?”The question set King Charles off, who “instantly got upset.”
Their father, Harry remembered, started “shouting” that William and Harry were “paranoid.”
“Just because we were getting bad press, and he was getting good, that didn’t mean his staff was behind it,” King Charles said.
When William and Harry shared they had “proof” from reporters that the woman was “selling” them out, he “refused to listen.”
“His response was churlish, pathetic,” Harry said of his father. “‘Granny has her person, why can’t I have mine?’” the king remarked. The “person” was Angela Kelly, the late Queen Elizabeth II’s dresser and confidante.
“Among the many services she performed for Granny, she was said to be skilled at planting stories,” Harry wrote.
William considered it a “rubbish comparison,” asking, “Why would anyone in their mind, let alone a grown man, want their own Angela?”
But it didn’t matter. King Charles kept repeating the same thing: “Granny had her person, Granny had her person. High time he had a person, too.”
Harry also revisited a phone call he received from his brother in late April 2019. It happened shortly before Meghan Markle was set to give birth to their son, now 4-year-old Prince Archie.
Harry answered to hear a “seething” William “talking too fast.” He “gathered that Pa and Camilla’s people had planted a story or stories about him and Kate, and the kids. And he wasn’t going to take it anymore.”
The culprit, Harry explained, wasn’t “technically” King Charles and Queen Camilla. Rather, someone on their communications team. “A true believer who’d devised and launched a new campaign of getting good press for Pa and Camilla at the expense of bad press for us.”
“I was glad that Willy felt he could still come to me about Pa and Camilla. Even after all we’d been through recently,” Harry wrote. “Seeing an opportunity to address our recent tensions, I tried to connect what Pa and Camilla had done to him with what the press had done to Meg.”
At that, William “snapped,” replying, “I’ve got different issues with you two!” and directing his “rage” toward Harry. His voice, the now-39-year-old recalled, could even be heard over a passing jet from Heathrow Airport.
“I couldn’t imagine how he had that much anger left after the confrontation in Nott Cott,” Harry noted. As William talked, he eventually noticed the Duchess of Sussex walking toward him in the Nott Cott garden. He took the phone off speaker. Even so, “she could still hear” every word, which brought her to tears.
