The Moment That Reportedly Broke Prince Harry And Queen Elizabeth's Tight Bond For Good

Prince Harry's close relationship with Queen Elizabeth II was well-documented. The late monarch was known to embody the famous British stiff upper lip, but there were plenty of moments when she shed her stoic demeanor around her playful grandson. One cheeky TikTok that spoke volumes about their bond featured the Duke of Sussex making his grandmother laugh with a joke about his 2011 North Pole expedition. In one of Queen Elizabeth's funniest ever moments, Harry managed to convince her to shoot a video promoting the 2016 Invictus Games in Florida and hilariously clap back at then-first lady Michelle Obama and then-President Barack Obama.

His relationship with his grandmother even seemingly survived his and his wife Meghan Markle's messiest moments with Queen Elizabeth and their 2020 exit from the royal family, despite a rift forming between him and his father, King Charles III; and older brother, William, Prince of Wales. Harry even revealed that he secretly visited the late queen in April 2022, five months before she passed away. However, royal insiders have since claimed Harry and Elizabeth's once-tight bond had been broken irreparably long before that visit.

The straw that reportedly broke the camel's back was Harry and Meghan's bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview, which aired while his grandfather, Prince Philip, was in the hospital recovering from heart surgery in March 2021 and featured the couple recounting the unfortunate events that led to them stepping back from royal duties. "Ultimately, the queen felt betrayed by Harry, and when he and Meghan attacked the institution that she spent her whole life serving in the Oprah interview, that betrayal was complete. It was absolutely shocking to those of us that knew him that he would do that, not least because her husband was on his deathbed," a royal insider told The Daily Beast.

Queen Elizabeth II reportedly was dealt a huge blow when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle accused someone in the royal family of making racist comments but refused to name them, causing the public to speculate for years on who the supposed racist royal was. Shortly after the interview aired, Oprah Winfrey clarified that Harry said the queen and Prince Philip (who died just a little over a month later) weren't involved, but this apparently didn't make Elizabeth feel any better. "That was what ultimately prompted [the queen] to issue the 'recollections may vary' statement. Things were never the same after that. ... It was a horrific series of betrayals at the end of her life," the royal insider told The Daily Beast of the sit-down. Another source claimed Harry and Meghan's decision to name their daughter Lilibet, which was Elizabeth's childhood nickname, was done without asking her for permission first, which reportedly only widened the rift between grandmother and grandson. (In 2021, reps for the Sussexes claimed they did get permission, per CNN.) 

This account contradicted Harry's statements about his relationship with Queen Elizabeth following the Winfrey sit-down. Aside from paying her a visit in April 2022, Harry and Meghan reunited with the late monarch and introduced Lilibet to her British great-grandmother during the queen's Platinum Jubilee celebration that June. Harry said he also received support from his grandmother regarding his lawsuits against several British tabloids before she passed away in September 2022. "We had many conversations before she passed, this is very much something she supported, she knew how much this meant to me," Harry recalled in the 2024 documentary "Tabloids on Trial" (via People). "She is up there going, 'See this through to the end,' without question."