The Timeline Of Prince Harry & Prince William's Reported Feud Will Leave You With Questions
Celebrity relationships and friendships are a rare breed. These famous faces have their lives played out in front of the masses, whether it’s the good, the bad, or the straight-up shady. In Elite Daily’s new series, It’s Complicated, we’re highlighting the biggest celebrity “feuds” that took over Hollywood and dominated our Sunday brunches for weeks on end. We’ll take a deep dive into the lives and social media feeds of our favorite stars and dissect what happened in front of the camera, what went down behind the scenes, and everything you might have missed in between.
If you've kept up with royal news lately (the English royals, not the Kardashians), then you know the tabloids have been reporting a hell of a lot of in-house fighting. The two dukes have reportedly been in a "royal feud," but is it actually a thing? The timeline of Prince William and Prince Harry's reported feud only proves that this whole thing is muddy at best. That's definitely partly due to how tight-lipped the royal family remains when it comes to personal matters, but also partly due to the fact that this feud just — I'll be frank — might not be real?
Basically, to understand the reported feud between William and Harry, we first have to understand the reported feud between Kate and Meghan.
For what felt like ages in the royal news cycle, outlets consistently reported that Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, were feuding. If you actually believe that these two intelligent women with much more important things going on in their lives would waste their time feuding with each other, then their so-called "feud" seemed like a believable enough story. Kate, the English traditionalist, and Meghan, the American modernist, find themselves at bitter odds when their ideals clash. But to many, it felt more like tabloid fodder than anything else. Yet reports still claimed the two women just couldn't get along.
November 2018: Meghan and Harry announce they're moving out of Kensington Palace and into Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.
Meghan and Harry had been living on the Kensington Palace grounds (specifically, in Nottingham Cottage) since their engagement, with Prince William, Kate, and their children living in the extravagant 1A apartment inside the palace (it legit has 20 rooms). Shortly following Meghan's pregnancy announcement in October, the palace announced the couple would be moving out and into the Frogmore Cottage in Windsor.
It makes sense that the couple would choose to move. Nottingham Cottage is a small(ish) space best suited to a couple. With only two bedrooms, it isn't the kind of space that merits raising a family in, if the couple's intention is to have more than one child. It's a typical thing couples do: When you're welcoming a baby, you get a bigger nest.
Despite the possible reason for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex moving to Frogmore Cottage being pretty clear and understandable, the Meghan/Kate feud rumors continued for several months, claiming that the move was the result of this "feud." One report claimed that Kate actually chastised Meghan after she reportedly spoke rudely to royal staff members.
“Her and Kate fell out when she b*****ed Kate’s staff," a source told The Sun. This fight was reportedly after Meghan reportedly made Kate cry about Princess Charlotte's bridesmaid dress, showing just how long the claims about this feud have been going on.
Buckingham Palace actually issued a statement in November 2018 about this, completely denying the story that Meghan made Kate cry. "This never happened," the statement said in reference to this reported feud between the two duchesses. Given that the palace denied this particular fight ever happened, it raises questions about the validity of the bridesmaid-dress debacle. Buckingham Palace seems like a pretty legit source, right?
Apparently not! Because as recently as January 2019, sources were still saying that the women were feuding, claiming that Kate reportedly felt used by Meghan, whom she thought was a social climber. A source told Us Weekly that Kate felt used by Meghan, and Meghan felt ignored by Kate, but that they reportedly patched things up on Christmas when the whole family was together at Sandringham House in Norfolk. Elite Daily reached out to the Palace for comment on this report, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
It wasn't until March 2019 that a former royal aid claimed the feud was never between Kate and Meghan, but *dun dun dun* their husbands. SMH. It's always the men.
My, my, my. How the tables have turned.
Nick Bullen, a longtime royal filmmaker, told Fox News, “It’s actually that William and Harry have had a rift. All brothers fall out. All families fall out. Their fallout at the moment is becoming public.” Elite Daily previously reached out to Kensington Palace for comment on the status of Prince William and Prince Harry's relationship, but they declined to comment.
Bullen told the outlet that Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles were "working incredibly hard to try and make sure everybody reunites." He said he learned this information from a "well-placed" source.
He went on to theorize about why he thought people were so willing to believe that it was Kate and Meghan fighting, not William and Harry.
“I think people don’t want to think about that with these two boys," he said. "These are two boys who lost their mother [Princess Diana] at a really early age, and the fairytale is that they are closer than ever and need each other, and I think that’s probably true. But equally they are two grown men in their 30s, starting their own families, different wives. They are moving to different parts of the country, different duties.”
So why all the fanfare surrounding Meghan and Kate's supposed feud in the press? Well, according to Bullen, female feuds sell more. *Sighs in the key of internalized misogyny.*
Bullen continued, "[It's] a much sexier story to have two duchesses at war. 'Let’s have these two super glamorous women — one British, one American. One an actress, one sort of an English rose. Let’s put them against each other.'"
Um... cute? Will tabloids ever stop pitting women against each other?! The world may never know.
And now, I'm getting whiplash, because in March 2019, a former employee of the royal family claimed there was never any bad blood between William and Harry. Like, at all. Nothing.
Dickie Arbiter, Queen Elizabeth's former press secretary, told Us Weekly that there was never a feud between any of the royals.
“It’s all based on Harry and Meghan moving out of Kensington Palace to move into Windsor,” he said, explaining the simple reason for the move that he believes sparked the feud rumors. Elite Daily reached out to Kensington Palace for comment on this report, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
“The reason [Harry and Meghan] are moving from Kensington Palace is the way they’re living at the moment is too small. There’s two bedrooms and a living room and a dining room downstairs. There’s no outside space and it’s just not big enough for a growing family.”
He continued in his attempt to dispel the rumors, explaining he believes they're moving to a bigger house because Harry and Meghan and William and Kate are effectively independent royals now.
"Harry has decided that he wants to set up his own office, which is fair enough," Arbiter said. "While he was single, he was living in his comfort zone with his brother and his sister-in-law. But now he’s married, he’s creating his own comfort zone, with his wife, and it just makes sense. You can’t have a small staff running the offices of two people. Harry is now moving on and setting up his own office. Nothing unusual in that.”
Honestly, Arbiter's version of events seems like the most believable to me. While they are his own analysis of what's going down in the royal family, they seem more like common sense than any other claim made in past reports.
For good measure, Arbiter attempted to clear this move up even more by explaining in further detail why the Sussex royals could be moving. And it's all about the nature of monarchies changing over the years.
“It’s called evolution,” he said. “The monarchy has been chosen for 1,000 years and Harry is now in his mid-30s … it just makes sense that now he’s married and he’s got his own interests — that some of which he shares with his brother, but most of them, he doesn’t share with his brother — that he has his own office to run his job. It just makes sense. It’s logistically the right thing to do.”
And that's what you missed about this feud! Nothing. You missed nothing. Because it sure seems like no feud ever existed!!
