Prince Harry was reportedly unsettled about one particular issue, according to a royal author.
A new claim suggests that Prince Harry felt “pushed aside” and grew increasingly unhappy when his brother, Prince William, began spending more time with Princess Catherine’s family after their wedding and the arrival of their children. The Duke of Sussex allegedly felt excluded as the Prince of Wales became more involved with the Middleton household and less present in Harry’s life.
Tina Brown — who also authored a major biography on Princess Diana — detailed the shift in her book The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor, the Truth and the Turmoil. She wrote that a former royal aide revealed the brothers’ bond was never quite the same after William married Catherine.
She noted: “Even though they remained very close — living side by side at Kensington Palace, sharing an office, and spending plenty of time together — Harry grieved the loss of their once ‘us against the world’ connection.”
Brown continued: “Harry felt edged out by their polished family dynamic and struggled to understand why William was so drawn to his Middleton in-laws. Their quiet, Bucklebury lifestyle left Harry completely uninterested.”
According to Brown, Harry viewed the Wales family as a “tight-knit unit” and saw William transforming into “a full-fledged Windsor country bumpkin.”
She added that William often spent weekends either at the Middleton home or wandering the grounds of Anmer Hall — the Georgian residence on the Sandringham Estate gifted to the couple by the late Queen. Dressed in a flat cap and tweed, he blended in with his Norfolk farming friends, whom Harry jokingly referred to as “turnip toffs.”
Brown also touched on William’s reported frustrations with his younger brother, claiming the future king was “far less amused” by Harry’s unpredictable behavior than the public, and that his actions often left him “exasperated.”
Royal commentator Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty Magazine, previously spoke about how easily William integrated into the Middleton family. He explained: “William settled into the Middleton household remarkably quickly, and they embraced him as a future son-in-law.”
Little added that the Middletons provided something William longed for: “He found a sense of stability and normal family life that he didn’t experience growing up. His parents’ marriage faced significant challenges, and he was painfully aware of that. With the Middletons, he found the steadiness and normality he had been missing — something he’ll always appreciate.”
