Harry told how he had been left “heartbroken” after William broke an agreement the brothers made based on their experience growing up watching their father.
Prince Harry described how his brother, Prince William, broke a pact they had made not to let their offices trade negative press stories about each other. “William and I both saw what happened in our dad’s office and we made an agreement that we would never let that happen to our office,” Harry said during filming of the Netflix documentary series “Harry & Meghan.” The Duke of Sussex, 38, revealed that he was left distraught after learning that his brother’s office had been putting out negative briefings about him.
The smears started after he and his wife Meghan Markle returned from a successful 2018 tour of Australia. He claimed that the reason behind the briefings was jealousy and competition between the two Princes’ households. “I would far rather get destroyed in the press than play along with this game or business of trading,” said the Duke of Sussex, 38, “and to see my brother’s office doing the same thing that we promised the two of us would never, ever do, that was heartbreaking,” Harry admitted.
“The issue is when someone who’s marrying in, who should be a supporting act is then stealing the limelight or is doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people,” Harry explained elsewhere in the docuseries. “It shifts the balance because you’ve been led to believe that the only way that your charities can succeed and the only way that your reputation can be grown or improved is if you’re the front page of those newspapers.”
He claimed that the press office for one member of the royal family will give journalists negative stories about another member in order to keep embarrassing news about their ‘principal’ off the front pages. “There’s leaking, but there’s also planting of stories. So, if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principle, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principle,” he explained during the doc. “So the offices end up working against each other. It’s kind of a weird understanding or acceptance that happens. And you can always say, ‘I didn’t know about this.’ Or, ‘This would never happen. Are you suggesting that I condone this?’ It’s like no, but what I am asking is have you done anything to stop it? And the answer is no.”
The Sussexes infamously quit their royal duties in January 2020 before sitting down for a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. The relationship between the Sussexes and the Royals soured further following the release of the Netflix series in 2022. In the second episode Harry talks at length about the relationship between the press and the Royals, saying: “I have 30 years experience of looking behind the curtain, and seeing how the system works and how it runs. “I mean, just constant briefings about other members of the family, about favours, inviting the press in. It’s a dirty game.”