King Charles Reportedly Wants to ‘Hit the Reset Button’ With Prince Harry, but There’s a Catch
King Charles III and Prince Harry may not quite be on their way to reconciling. The king is reportedly eager to hit the “reset button” with his youngest son, the Duke of Sussex. However, it’s said to be a “quid-pro-quo” situation where Harry will have to accept not getting everything he wants.
King Charles doesn’t ‘expect’ an apology from Harry
Ready to dish out apologies isn’t apparently where King Chares stands with Harry at the moment. Speaking to the Daily Beast, a “friend” of King Charles’s said: “It has been reported that Charles wants an apology from Harry, but that’s far from the truth. [Charles] wouldn’t expect that.”
The king, they explained, knows the Windsor family is “a stubborn lot,” and the Duke of Sussex is “no exception.” So it seems, an apology from either King Charles or Harry may not be on the horizon quite yet.
While Harry’s said to be on speaking terms with his father, he and his wife, Meghan Markle, aren’t reportedly talking to Queen Camilla or Prince William and Kate Middleton.
King Charles wants a ‘quid-pro-quo’ arrangement with Harry for hitting the ‘reset button’
The king’s friend continued, saying that given the Windsor family’s “stubborn” streak and where things stand, hitting the “reset button” would depend on whether or not Harry would move firward without an apology.
“The quid-pro-quo is, can Harry accept that he won’t be getting an apology either?” the friend asked. “Don’t forget that Charles authorised [sic] Jonathan Dimbleby to write a book which attacked his parents.” The former Prince of Wales authorized a 1994 authorized biography about the then-Prince of Wales. “But ultimately, they all basically forgot about it, chalked it down to experience, and moved on.”
Topics included the now-King Charles’s marriage to Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, among others. At one point, Diana was described as a “hired womb.” Elsewhere were details on the king’s relationship with Queen Camilla, and his distant parents.
Following Harry’s own bombshell memoir, “Charles wants to hit the reset button — but not at any price,” the friend concluded.
Meanwhile, a former Buckingham Palace staffer who worked for King Charles, told the outlet the monarch has a “strategic need to resolve the issue” of the Harry-royal family estrangement.
“It’s not sustainable for the king, who is the national symbol of unity, to be on such bad terms with his son that they haven’t been pictured together in years,” they explained. “Ultimately, Charles has not just a personal but also a strategic need to resolve the issue.”
Harry’s ‘willing to forgive’ the royal family, wants ‘accountability’
As for Harry, he publicly shared what it will take for a reconciliation to happen in January 2023 with the release of his Spare memoir. In an interview with the U.K.’s Telegraph, the now-39-year-old explained he wanted a “proper conversation” with his family.
“The way I see it is, I’m willing to forgive you for everything you’ve done,” Harry told the outlet. “And I wish you’d actually sat down with me, properly, and instead of saying I’m delusional and paranoid, actually sit down and have a proper conversation about this. Because what I’d really like is some accountability.”
Harry also said he wanted the royal family to apologize to his wife, Meghan, for how she was treated.
