Last week, a few days before the 27th anniversary of their mother’s death, Prince William and Prince Harry were in the same room for the first time in months. More than a year, in fact, having last shared the same air — if not the olive branch of brotherly reconciliation — at their father’s coronation last May.
The men — whose ongoing estrangement has now superseded the recently reconciled Gallagher brothers of rock band Oasis fame for the bitterest famous sibling feud of our time — were both in Norfolk for their uncle’s funeral. Not their most famous uncle, Charles Spencer — although Harry did reportedly stay with him at nearby Althorp, the stately home where Diana lived as a child — but the husband of one of their mother’s sisters, Lord Robert Fellows, a long-time member of the royal inner circle.
Despite the poignancy of the moment (and on the very same weekend that Liam and Noel were hosting The Hunger Games, er, releasing tickets for Oasis’s rabidly anticipated reunion tour) the brothers do not seem to have used their proximity to share any of the ice that has grown over the ocean, literally and figuratively, that exists between their very different lives in England and California.
In fact, per the Sun, the “warring” men arrived “discretely” and sat separately in the back of St Mary’s church, which is not far from the royals’ Sandringham estate and William’s own country home, Anmer Hall, where he seems to have spent most of this summer.
“William and Harry were both there, but we never saw them speak to each other and they were keeping their distance,” a local told the tabloid.
And while a funeral isn’t the best place to hash out your differences — unless it’s Prince Philip’s, site of the “duel-like” confrontation between Harry and his father and brother, as recounted in “Spare” — other signs continue to point to an ongoing froideur between the brothers, whose troubled relationship has been the stuff of tittle-tattle (and Harry’s memoir) for several years now, seemingly stemming from years of tension that came to a head when Harry met his now-wife Meghan, and their eventual decision to leave working royal life in 2020. It’s a rift that seems to have only deepened since Harry told his side of the story — which included painting an unflattering portrait of a bullying, violent, tortured “Willy” — in his book last year.
Case in point: Pegged to Harry’s “secret” visit back to England for his uncle’s funeral, the Daily Mail claimed it had an exclusive scoop on the Duke of Sussex’s “plot to return” to the U.K. In what it claimed has been called “Operation Bring Harry Back In From The Cold,” the tabloid alleged that the prince had been asking his old staffers for help to “mastermind a return from exile.”
And while their sources say it’s not about returning permanently to the U.K., “the overtures signify the first stage in a strategy to ‘rehabilitate’ Harry that would involve him spending more time in the U.K. to repair his relationship with his father and potentially initiate a partial return to the royal fold.”
This is all coming as, the tabloid claims, the Sussexes part ways with a PR adviser, the 10th person to have left their employ in the last three years.
“He is clearly reaching out thinking, ‘I need to do something different because what I’m doing is clearly not working.’ In short, he is rethinking the way he operates,” said its source.
And while Harry’s team didn’t respond to the Mail’s initial request for comment, the Telegraph claims it has multiple sources who say Harry has “no interest” in returning to his old royal duties.
As for William? Well, he’s apparently been busy “poaching” celebrity chef and philanthropist Jose Andrés from his brother, who has previously donated to his charity and called him a “longtime friend.”
According to the Daily Beast, the chef has now joined the board of Earthshot, William’s flagship royal project that’s focused on solutions to climate change.
“The fact that William can just poach him for Earthshot is not just humiliating for Harry and Meghan, it is a very graphic illustration of the power differential between William and Harry,” a PR guru told the Daily Beast. “Faced with a choice, when it comes to advancing the goals of his organization, Andrés has chosen to be allied with the future king of England, and Harry and Meghan will have to either accept it or cut ties with him themselves.”
Cutting ties, at least, seems to be something both brothers are very familiar with as their very public, very sad feud seems intractable and unsolvable, even as Harry approaches a milestone 40th birthday, and their father battles cancer.
Maybe Liam and Noel can have a word?
