I can’t link to this, so copying, it’s a Dan Wakeford substack and he is very sympathetic to the Sussexes generally, not so much in this one.
Grief Encounter
Harry sat down with GQ’s Zach Baron in New York last month, during UN week, to promote his new MasterClass on grief. Much of it is genuinely moving. He admits he answered every “How are you?” with “I’m fine” for twenty years, and couldn’t cry for most of that time. He still regrets rushing off his last phone call with his mother so he could go and play with his cousins. (Anyone who has ever hung up on a parent a little too quickly will feel that one in the stomach.) Then Baron asked about his complicated relationship with his brother and his father. Harry said of course he grieves it, that reconciling matters most, and then: “Some people don’t want it to work out. I want it to work out.”
Royal watchers heard a swipe at William. A spokesman for the Duke of Sussex tells me: “It was absolutely not intended as a swipe at his brother or any other member of his family. The comment was made in a general context and was not directed at his family in any way.” To be fair to Harry, the sentences just before it are about the public watching his family and wondering how they’ll fix things. He may well have meant the onlookers, many who in my social media comments certainly don’t want a reunion between the brothers. But when the question is about your brother, nobody hears broadly and a denial turns a one-day line into a two-day story.
A Royal Gap Year?
The timing makes it starker. Last week, Harry and Meghan carried out their first joint engagement since moving back, a step that has been seen as a sign of their determination to be seen as public figures, despite the King’s letter last month describing their position as akin to that of private citizens. So just as Harry steps forward, William steps further back.
Split Screen at Windsor
Then came yesterday’s split screen. Harry’s interview went live just as the Sultan of Oman’s state visit was getting underway, months of planning, carriages and pageantry suddenly sharing the headlines with GQ. Hours later, the King hosted 160 guests at a state banquet at Windsor. Speaking partly in Arabic, Charles praised William and the Sultan’s son, joint patrons of an Omani expedition, saying there can be “few happier symbols of success” than a relationship passed from one generation to the next. William and Kate were at the heart of it. Harry, no longer a working royal, of course was not.
William’s circle has a theory, and it isn’t kind. People close to him tell me they believe Harry won’t be here long. They think this trip is about money, a few million for a Diana documentary, and once the check clears he’ll be back in California before you can say Montecito.
Spare Us
There’s something darker underneath. Since Spare, I’m told, William doesn’t feel his family is safe around Harry. Private conversations became published chapters. Childhood memories became bestseller material. So the Prince of Wales has chosen the coldest option available... he behaves as if Harry and Meghan don’t exist.
Silent Night
And now the one date everybody had circled has vanished. People reported that the Sussexes will spend Christmas in the US, with a friend saying they know they won’t be invited to Sandringham and aren’t waiting for an invitation. A representative for the couple tells me they will likely spend it with Meghan’s mother, Doria, but wouldn’t say whether that will be in California or the UK. Either way, nobody is expecting a place at Sandringham. Royal watchers had quietly marked the festive season as the moment the brothers might finally end up face to face, if only for a stiff nod across a Sandringham drawing room. (Christmas has a way of forcing these encounters. Ask anyone who has sat opposite an estranged relative over the Brussels sprouts.)
With Sandringham off the table, nothing on the calendar puts them in the same room. No family occasion on the horizon demands both brothers in the same pew. Which leaves us exactly here. Stalemate.
Representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex declined to comment on the other claims in this story. Kensington Palace did not respond to a request for comment.
The Talking Cure
Every interview is selling something. The obvious product here is the MasterClass, which people pay for. The bigger product is Harry himself. Six years ago he was the prince who left. Now he wants to be the man who talks openly about grief and has come home to Britain. A long, thoughtful conversation with a sympathetic host is exactly how you build that. Harry even explains his thinking to GQ: stay quiet and the stories keep coming anyway, so he’d rather tell his own. As a career strategy, it makes sense. As a family strategy, it’s a disaster.
The royals run on scarcity. “Never complain, never explain” has been the family motto for decades: say very little, so every word counts. William’s silence is a media strategy too, the oldest one they have. Harry runs on availability, and every time he’s available, one sentence about his family can swallow everything else he says. The GQ interview is almost entirely about grief. The line people will remember is about his brother.
We’ve seen this before. In May last year, after losing his security case, Harry told the BBC he wanted to reconcile, and said his father wouldn’t speak to him. The plea for peace became another round of the feud. To a brother who fears private conversations turning into published chapters, every new interview looks like more of the same. You can’t reconcile with someone through a magazine.
If I were advising Harry, I’d tell him to talk about the work and leave the family out of it. Let the reconciliation happen somewhere no microphone can reach.