Over the years, Prince Harry’s strained relationship with the royal family has been a talking point for many.
Following his wife Meghan Markle’s interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, the release of their Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, and his explosive memoir Spare, royal watchers have been given their side of the story which shows how deep-rooted the tensions are between the families.
Back in January 2023, the world got an extremely insight into the friction when Harry released his. One of the biggest revelations was how critical Prince Harry is of his stepmother, Queen Camilla.
During one of his televised interviews on CBS with Anderson Cooper, the Duke explained: “She was the third person in their marriage. She needed to rehabilitate her image.”
In the book, it was detailed how Harry and his brother Prince William had asked their father, King Charles, not to marry the now-Queen Consort. “We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought it would do more harm than good,” he revealed on CBS. “Why go that far when you don’t necessarily need to? We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her. So, at the time, it was, ‘OK.’”
The American journalist then probed: “You wrote that she started a campaign in the British press to pave the way for a marriage. And you wrote, ‘I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy.’ How was she dangerous?” To which, Harry replied: “Because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image. That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade information.
And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.” In the memoir, the Duke also wrote that Camilla “sacrificed me on her personal PR altar”.
Here we take a look back at some of the moments Prince Harry has shared with his stepmother, Queen Camilla. In 2005, both Prince Harry and Prince William were among the party who attended Charles’ wedding to Camilla in April 2005 – the private civil ceremony took place at Windsor’s Guildhall.
Photos from the day show the royal brothers happily posing with the then-newlyweds and Camilla’s two children from her previous marriage, Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes.