Everything Prince Harry Has Said About His Feud With William (So Far)

It's the feud that has spawned millions of headlines, and it's been going strong for almost a decade now, but regardless of the time that's passed, royal pundits still can't stop talking about the fraught relationship between Prince Harry and Prince William. Those hoping that Princess Diana's two sons will eventually reconcile have been relentlessly looking for signs that Harry's 2026 move back to the U.K. could end his feud with William, to no avail.

Alas, as of this writing, the two brothers are yet to be seen in public together, and there hasn't even been a whisper of them having had any communication whatsoever in private. Things are looking grim, but one thing that has stood out over the years has been Harry's outspokenness over his and William's icy relationship, while the Prince of Wales' silence has been deafening — just like the late Queen Elizabeth II taught her family to handle such uncomfortable dilemmas. "Never complain, never explain" is alive and well, and William is the living embodiment of it.

Harry, however, has produced a tell-all Netflix documentary, released a bombshell book, and, of course, sat down for that earth-shattering Oprah Winfrey interview in 2021. With every thinly veiled swipe at his family and his brother, Harry only managed to alienate William even further. Sources close to William told the Mirror in October 2026 that the Prince of Wales has no plans to engage with his little brother, despite his return. "There isn't a world right now where the Prince of Wales can imagine repairing the relationship with his brother," the source disclosed. Harry has made it clear he's ready to make amends, but he's arguably said way too much about his and William's feud over the years for his brother to ever trust him again.

Long before Prince Harry ever acknowledged that he and Prince William were in each other's crosshairs, royal watchers picked up on the tension. And it's partly thanks to certain things Harry said during interviews.

In the 2019 documentary "Harry & Meghan: An African Journey," the Duke of Sussex was confronted by a question about how he and his brother had been getting on lately. His response was telling. "Part of this role, part of this job, this family, being under the pressure which it's under, inevitably stuff happens. But we're brothers, we'll always be brothers," he said. "We're certainly on different paths at the moment." If there was a way to tell us that you're feuding with your big brother without telling us you're feuding with your big brother, that certainly was it. Harry quickly added, "I love him dearly," but admitted their lives have diverged in such a manner that they no longer saw each other regularly.

By the time he and Meghan Markle spoke to Oprah Winfrey following their abrupt exit from the U.K., Harry was talking openly about just how different his and William's paths had become, arguing that his brother was basically Rapunzel locked up in a tower, with no one to save him. "I was trapped but I didn't know I was trapped. Trapped within the system like the rest of the family. My father and my brother are trapped. They don't get to leave and I have huge compassion for that," Harry said, per People. He elaborated on this in the "Harry & Meghan" Netflix documentary, arguing that he wanted a more modern monarchy, whereas William was more focused on tradition.

Before their estrangement, Prince Harry and Prince William really got into it one day, with the latter trying to solve things with his fists. At least, that's what the Duke of Sussex claims. In one of the most startling revelations from Harry's memoir, "Spare," he detailed one incident where William came to his and Meghan Markle's house in 2019 and went on to fume about the duchess.

Harry claimed William was echoing "the press narrative," calling Meghan "difficult, rude, [and] abrasive." There was a fiery exchange, with William finally exclaiming that his only intention was to help his brother. "Are you serious? Help me? Sorry — is that what you call this? Helping me?" Harry retorted. This was when William apparently lost his composure. Harry offered him water, and William not only declined but allegedly seized his little brother by the neck. "He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog's bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out," Harry claimed. He noted William denied that he'd "attacked" him and told Harry to keep the confrontation from Meghan, which he didn't.

While the palace responded with its usual "no comment" when Page Six tried to get any further information about the altercation allegations, a source disclosed that the Prince of Wales was royally ticked off that Harry included the spat in his book. Harry, meanwhile, told The Telegraph after the book's release that there was more to reveal, but he excluded it. "Because I don't think [the royal family] would ever forgive me," he said.

While Prince Harry's first draft of "Spare" reportedly spilled a lot more royal secrets than pundits ever got to read, he was pretty candid about his and Prince William's differences in an interview with Michael Strahan on "GMA" ahead of the book's release. Strahan asked Harry about his choice to call William his "beloved brother" and "arch nemesis" in the same breath. "There has always been this competition between us, weirdly," the royal answered. "I think it really plays into, or was played by, the 'heir/spare.'"

Harry's claims that his brother is competitive have been corroborated by those w]]ho know William and even the Prince of Wales himself. TV chef and baking expert Dame Mary Berry told Saga in 2025 that she'd had the pleasure of collaborating with William, before noting, "I've done quite a few things with him and, gosh, he's competitive. So is [his wife Princess] Catherine." She made it clear that she adores William and was so honored when he shared that he learned how to cook from her.

Meanwhile, William confirmed on cousin-in-law Mike Tindall's podcast, "The Good, the Bad, and the Rugby," that he and Catherine are indeed super competitive, especially when it comes to sports. As Catherine acknowledged, "I don't think we've actually managed to finish a game of tennis. It becomes a mental challenge between the two of us." William concurred, "It's who can out-mental the other." As for whether he planned to 'out-mental' Harry with his deafening silence on the allegations in "Spare"? Well, William might have, given how eager Harry seemed to make amends after his 2026 return to the U.K.

Princess Diana's tragic death rocked the world, but no one was affected like her two sons, Prince Harry and Prince William, who were both still so young when she died. While many thought their mother's passing brought them closer together, Harry revealed in an 2023 ITV interview (via People) ahead of his book's release that the pain eventually drove a bit of a wedge between them. He explained that, while they loved each other dearly, they began to grow apart. He fully experienced it when he joined William at Eton College and found that his brother had no interest in being his friend. "He didn't want anything to do with me. And that hurt at the time," Harry said.

Harry also revealed that, while he and William were the only two people in the world who understood what they went through after their mother's death, it didn't necessarily serve to bring them closer. "What would be quite shocking or surprising to people is that after our mother died, we were on different paths," Harry shared. "Two individuals who experienced a very similar traumatic experience, but dealt with it in two very different ways."

William seemingly confirmed this sense of separation that occurred after their mother's death during a roundtable chat with Princess Catherine and Harry for their Heads Together mental health campaign in 2017. He admitted that he and Harry never got closure together over their mother's death. "[We] have not talked enough about our mother," William said. When Catherine pointed out that the brothers were "amazingly close," William interjected, "Most of the time." The elder prince did go on to acknowledge," [We're] uniquely bonded because of what we've been through."

It's well known among royal pundits that there are some strict rules and protocols members of the monarchy need to follow. One of them dictates that men should be clean-shaven on their wedding day — no beards allowed. Prince Harry has broken his fair share of royal rules, and his wedding day was no exception. Avid royal watchers will recall that Harry sported a beard on his and Meghan Markle's big day. However, in a 2023 ITV interview, Harry revealed that he'd asked Queen Elizabeth II for her blessing to do so, and that her granting him permission to keep his facial hair left William fuming, because apparently, the same exception was not made for him on his wedding day.

"Writing ['Spare'], I remembered that William had a beard himself, and that granny and other people were the ones who told him to shave it off," Harry recalled during the interview, per Business Insider. "The difference for me, was, as I explained to my grandmother, that this beard, that I'm still wearing, felt to me at the time like the new Harry, as almost like a shield to my anxiety."

In 2024, William brought back his beard amid royal family turmoil, and made headlines doing so. While many pundits were a fan of the new look, one very important person decidedly wasn't. "Charlotte didn't like it the first time," William admitted when asked about his new facial hair during a visit to South Africa, per The Standard. "I got floods of tears, so I had to shave it off. And then I grew it back. I thought, hang on a second, and I convinced her it was going to be okay."

As Prince Harry became increasingly outspoken over his royal rift with Prince William, one thing that kept coming up was the allegation that the Prince of Wales had been happy to sell Harry and Meghan Markle out to the press in attempts to protect himself and Princess Catherine from media scrutiny. "There's leaking, but there's also planting of stories," Harry said in his and Meghan's Netflix documentary, per The Hollywood Reporter. "If the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their principal [in this case, William and Catherine], they will trade and give you something else about someone else's principal." 

Harry added that he and his brother made a pact years ago that they would never resort to this kind of mud-slinging to protect their own interests over the other's. But he claimed William broke his word after Meghan entered the picture. During a 2023 interview with The Telegraph, Harry revisited these claims, noting, "[The British press has] a sh** ton of dirt about my family, I know they have, and they sweep it under the carpet for juicy stories about someone else." He also addressed his family directly in the interview, saying, "You know what you did, and I now know why you did it. And you've been caught out, so just come clean and then we could all move on."

Speaking with Anderson Cooper for "60 Minutes" in 2023, Harry said he'd tried countless times to resolve matters outside of the spotlight, but that this always failed, and that he was punished with demeaning stories in the press. "You know, the family motto is 'never complain, never explain,' but it's just a motto and it doesn't really hold," he concluded.

It's hard to truly know what it's like to be the older sibling when, well, you aren't one. And Prince Harry has since admitted that, after having kids of his own, he has a better understanding of how Prince William felt when they were younger.

In "Spare," Harry was very candid about how hard it was for him to arrive at Eton College. He was so excited to join his big brother at school, and have him around again like he'd been used to all his life. William, however, wouldn't have any of it, and told Harry to "pretend I didn't know him," the Duke of Sussex wrote in "Spare." As he looked back on that time while writing the book, Harry reasoned that William had already forged his own path at Eton at that point, and in the process, had left his little brother behind entirely. "For the last two years, he explained, Eton had been his sanctuary," Harry penned. "No kid brother tagging along, pestering him with questions, pushing up on his social circle. He was forging his own life, and he wasn't willing to give it up."

During a 2023 ITV interview (via People), Harry noted that he understood William's position better after observing his own two kids, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. "To see Lili obsessed with Archie and Archie like, no, no, Lili, I need my space. I need my space now. I get it. I get how irritating the younger sibling can be to the older sibling," Harry said. However, he noted that, when you're still so young, you don't quite comprehend these things, and that dealing with it in the moment is hard regardless.

In a 2025 BBC interview (via Hello!), Prince Harry once again touched on his ongoing feud with Prince William. He made it clear that he is more than willing to make amends — and could even forgive William for the supposed hand he had in his and Meghan Markle's misery. Harry painted himself as the one who had done what needed to be done, and that the ball was in William and the rest of his family's court. "If they don't want that, that's entirely up to them," Harry said. "I can forgive my family's involvement, my father, my brother and my stepmother, I can forgive. I can forgive the press to a large extent as well, for so many things that have happened."

As for whether William can forgive Harry, that's another matter entirely. Royal expert Phil Dampier told the Daily Mail in August 2026 that Harry is barely on the Prince of Wales' radar. "Friends tell me that, as far as he is concerned, Harry is the past, and he is only concerned about the future for his wife, Catherine, and their children, George, Charlotte and Louis," Dampier asserted. "He will never forgive Harry, in my opinion, not just for leaving the royal family, but for the dirt he dished out in his book 'Spare,' the Netflix show, and the Oprah Winfrey interview."

What's more, William apparently isn't thrilled about Harry's comments regarding his status in the family. In an 2026 ITV interview (via Hello!), Harry said the "not a working royal" designation doesn't mean anything to him. "I will always be part of the royal family," he said. Evidently, this statement didn't sit too well with Harry's older brother. As a palace insider claimed to Radar, "William is fuming."

Prince Harry has gone from blaming Prince William for his troubles, to proclaiming that he can forgive him, to alleging that his big brother is, in fact, the reason tensions between them remain unresolved. Speaking to GQ in an interview that was released in October 2026, Harry broached the topic of his fraught relationship with William once again. "Some people don't want it to work out. I want it to work out," Harry told interviewer Zach Baron, who interjected, "You do?" Harry replied, "Of course I do. ... The most important thing is to reconcile."

While Harry didn't outright say that he was talking about William when he noted that there are people who don't want to see their relationship improve, many took his words to mean just that. Harry's spokesperson ended up putting out a statement to rebuke these claims, insisting 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," per People. Then again, William's silence amid his brother's openness about making amends says more than a statement from him ever will.

After Harry's GQ interview aired, royal expert Hugo Vickers told The Sun, "I can think of many reasons why Prince William would not wish to reconcile with his brother." He cited the damaging claims Harry made about William and Princess Catherine in interviews, documentaries, and his memoir, "Spare." "It's a very damaged relationship," he concluded. Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told Fox News the GQ interview is proof Harry can't be trusted not to speak about family matters publicly.