Prince Harry said that he and Prince William had “been through hell together” in his 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, but the final episodes of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan revealed a rift.
More than ever, Prince Harry is discussing his relationship with his brother, Prince William.
The 38-year-old Duke of Sussex discussed his strained relationship with his 40-year-old brother in brand-new episodes of Harry & Meghan that debuted on Thursday on Netflix.
During the Sandringham Summit, in which Harry and William sat down with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles to discuss how the Sussexes could both lead an independent life while remaining of service to the Queen, “It became very clear very quickly that that goal was not up for discussion or debate,” said Harry. “It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that simply weren’t true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in.”
Leaving the monumental meeting without a clear path forward, “The saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother, so that he’s now on the institution’s side,” Harry continued. “Part of that I get, I understand, right, that’s his inheritance. So to some extent, it’s already ingrained in him that part of his responsibility is the survivability and continuation of this institution.”
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To that end, Harry opened up about the family’s relationship with the press: how there’s “leaking, but there’s also planting, of sorts,” and how “if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal [royal figure], they will trade and give you something about someone else’s principal. So the offices end up working against each other.”
“William and I both saw what happened in our dad [King Charles III]’s office, and we made an agreement that we would never let that happen to our office,” Harry continued.
However, in 2020, Harry felt that promise was broken when William’s office released a joint statement from the brothers rebutting reports that Harry and Meghan’s step back from royal life had to do with bullying by William.
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“We couldn’t believe it,” Harry said. “No one had asked me permission to put my name to a statement like that. And I rang M and I told her and she burst into floods of tears because within four hours, they were happy to lie to protect my brother. And yet, for three years, they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.”
In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, a palace source shares that Prince William and Kate Middleton are avoiding the Harry & Meghan docuseries, having aides watch instead.
Despite an apparent olive branch following Queen Elizabeth’s death in September, when Prince Harry and Meghan joined Prince William and Kate to view tributes to the monarch outside Windsor Castle, the relationship between the brothers remains strained.
“It will take a long time before there is harmony between the brothers,” says a source close to the royal household. “There is a lot of anger there.”
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In the first three episodes of the Netflix series following the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Meghan spoke about her lack of understanding of royal life, including her surprise when she first met Kate.
“When Will and Kate came over and I had met her for the first time, they came over for dinner,” Meghan said in Harry & Meghan. “I remember I was in ripped jeans and barefoot.”
“Like I was a hugger, always been a hugger,” she added. “I didn’t realize that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.”
“I guess I’d start to understand very quickly that the formality on the outside, carried through on the inside,” she continued. “There is a forward-facing way of being and then you close the door and you relax now. But that formality carries over on both sides. And that was surprising to me.”
A friend of the Princess of Wales tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story that the royal is “warm and friendly.”
“Kate’s a big hugger,” the friend says. “She is warm and friendly and greets everyone with a big hug and kiss. It comes naturally to her to be like that.”
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In Prince Harry and Meghan’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry said his relationship with Prince William “is space at the moment,” but added that he “loves William to bits — we’ve been through hell together.”
“And you know, time heals all things, hopefully,” he said.
Volumes one and two Harry & Meghan are now streaming on Netflix.
Source: People.com