'Harry crossed the line': Why the long-running royal feud shows no signs of ending

EXCLUSIVE: The feud between King Charles, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex has been one of the most discussed topics in recent years and as 2024 draws to a close, the stalemate appears to be holding firm.

There's been no outward signs of the rift being repaired despite two major health crises within the British royal family this year alone: the cancer diagnoses of the King and the Princess of Wales.

As ITV royal editor Chris Ship tells 9honey, "cancer hasn't been able to bring the two of them back together", referring to the King and his youngest son, who remains ostracised from the royal family.

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However, "relations between father and son are better than they are between brother and brother".

"But let's face it," Ship says, "they're not good. You don't come all the way over to the UK twice and not see your father as Harry did."

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The Duke of Sussex briefly met his father, face to face, in February within hours of the King's cancer diagnosis being made public.

But Prince Harry returned again in May, and later in September, and didn't see the King either time.

"I know the traffic is bad in London, but it's not that far to get between Saint Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace," Ship says, of Harry's May visit.

"They could have seen each other."

During the worldwide promotion for his memoir Spare, Prince Harry said he was willing to put the bitter feud with his family behind him but was waiting to hear from the King and his brother.

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He and wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, were said to have been blindsided by the Princess of Wales' announcement that she had started a course of preventive chemotherapy in February – news they found out at the same time the rest of the world did in March.

The Prince and Princess of Wales are said to have not trusted Prince Harry and Meghan with the news before making it public, wary after the couple's many television interviews, and Spare, in which they revealed intimate family secrets.

"Harry crossed the line in two ways," Ship says.

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"One was by talking about Kate [in Spare], that really upset William. And the other was by saying what he said about Queen Camilla, his stepmother, and that would have crossed the line with the King.

"So, on both those levels, he's hurt his brother and hurt his father.

"And that's why they don't really want to make amends. If and when they do, it's going take a while. There's a lot of healing to be done."

Prince Harry and Meghan were understood to have reached out to Prince William and Kate privately when the princess's cancer diagnosis was revealed.

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But the brothers did not speak to each other when they attended the funeral of their uncle Lord Robert Fellowes, in August.

Ship believes Prince William is the biggest barrier to the long-running feud coming to an end.

"I think that if King Charles could mend fences with his younger son he would," Ship said.

"It's a source of great sadness for him that he doesn't talk to Harry very often.

"He hasn't seen his grandchildren, Harry and Megan's two children Archie and Lilibet, very often at all.

"If King Charles could mend that fence, he would.

"But there's another problem that he has another son, Prince William, and he doesn't want to mend fences with Prince Harry.

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"Both William and Harry are very stubborn and neither of them look willing to mend fences, to repair the damage in that relationship."

Ship isn't hopeful of any major changes in family relations in the coming months.

"William and Harry do not talk. And whilst William and Harry do not talk and William remains the heir to the throne and future King, there's really no opportunity and no possibility of Harry coming back into the royal family."

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