Prince Harry and Queen Camilla Have Switched Places—Here’s How
Prince Harry and Queen Camilla have traded places. The Duke of Sussex, 41, is now the “outcast” of the British royal family, a “position” once held by his stepmother, 77. Ahead, why the queen’s so much more than a “simple country woman.” Plus, how Harry’s comments about Queen Camilla were “the last straw” for King Charles III.
Camilla’s now ‘seen with affection,’ not Harry
Speaking on Queen Camilla: The Wicked Stepmother?, a Channel 4 TV program broadcast in the U.K., journalist Petronella Wyatt, who is also a friend of the queen’s, discussed how the two royals have switched places.
There once was a time—the King Charles and Princess Diana years—when Queen Camilla proved a controversial figure. Now, she’s someone who has received praise for taking on more duties amid the king and Kate Middleton’s respective cancer battles. Meanwhile, Harry, a once popular British royal, is now an “outcast.”
“I think it’s very interesting to see how Harry’s position and Camilla’s position within the royal family has reversed,” Wyatt said (via Newsweek). “Because Camilla used to be the hated and despised outcast. Now Harry’s the outcast and Camilla’s seen with affection as a sort of safe pair of hands.”
Queen Camilla, Diana’s former private secretary Patrick Jephson shared, played a major role in her own reputational turnaround. “I think Camilla, far from being the simple country woman that we were sold is actually a very shrewd politically media savvy person,” he said.
“We are told that the campaign to rehabilitate Camilla has been subtle. I don’t think it’s been subtle at all. It’s got all the subtlety of a sledgehammer,” he added, noting the people in King Charles’s office were “pretty cold-blooded in the way they used Harry […] misrepresenting facts in order to portray his father and his mistress in a better light.”
Harry speaking ill of Queen Camilla was the ‘last straw’ for King Charles
In his 2023 Spare memoir, the queen was, much like Harry’s brother Prince William, someone who wasn’t portrayed kindly. Harry recalled wondering “if she’d be like all the wicked stepmothers in storybooks” before meeting her for the first time.” (She wasn’t, which he was grateful for.) Elsewhere, he described Queen Camilla as “the Other woman” and someone who “sacrificed” him on her “personal PR altar.”
A source told the U.K.’s Mirror at the time of the book’s publication that King Charles didn’t hesitate after he learned what Harry had said about his stepmother. “It was the last straw,” the insider told the outlet per Express.
“Harry was well aware how Camilla would be a red line for his father and he crossed with flagrant disregard anyway. The King felt without a doubt it crossed a line—it was the ultimate act of disrespect.”
Camilla’s connection to Harry’s short visit with his father in February 2024
Remember back in February 2024 when Harry boarded a plane to London, England, soon after Buckingham Palace announced the king’s cancer diagnosis? He touched down, and went to Clarence House, where he met with his father. But Harry wasn’t there for long. Reports at the time clocked his visit at under an hour.
In the aftermath, royal author Robert Jobson claimed Queen Camilla might’ve played a role in Harry’s short visit. “The queen was with the king,” Jobson said at the time. “Let’s be honest—he [Harry] wasn’t too complimentary about Queen Camilla in his book, Spare. He wasn’t very complimentary about her on Netflix [Harry & Meghan]. They don’t get on.”
Since Harry and Meghan left royal life in 2020 and relocated to California, they only see other royals on rare occasions. Think Platinum Jubilee Weekend (June 2022), Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral (September 2022), and the coronation (May 2023), which Harry attended solo.
