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Meghan Markle wasn’t the “original factor” in the breakdown of Prince Harry’s relationship with Prince William. An author says fractures in the royal brothers’ relationship went back more than a decade — yes, a decade — before the Duchess of Sussex entered the Duke of Sussex’s life. It all stemmed from Harry being the “scapegoat” while his brother, the now-Prince of Wales, always came away “smelling of roses.” 

Harry and William had problems in their relationship as early as 2002

According to author Robert Lacey, William and Harry didn’t start having problems when Meghan came along in 2016. (She and Harry went on their first date in July of that year.) 

“Meghan was not the original factor in Prince Harry’s decision to get shot of his family,” Lacey wrote in Battle of Brothers. He claimed William and Harry had a falling out as early as 2002, 14 years before the Duchess of Sussex arrived on the royal scene. 

The year it was “discovered that Harry had been smoking cannabis, a revelation generating excruciating ‘drug shame’ headlines,” The Daily Mail wrote. The issue, the author explained, stemmed from Harry feeling the blame always landed on him.

The “humiliation” continued in 2005 when a photo of Harry wearing a Nazi uniform at a Colonials and Natives party surfaced. “Amid the furor, Harry issued a public apology, and [then] Prince Charles packed him off to be lectured by the Chief Rabbi.”

It prompted Harry “to re-evaluate his elder brother’s involvement and the unfairness of William’s emergence smelling of roses,” Lacey wrote. 

In Spare, his 2023 memoir, Harry revisited the Nazi uniform scandal, implicating William and Kate Middleton in the process, claiming the now-Prince and Princess of Wales encouraged him to wear it and even “howled” with laughter when he tried it on. 

Harry felt ‘alienated’ and went through periods of not talking to William

Lacey continued, claiming over the years the incidents where he became the “scapegoat” pushed him and William apart. 

“It made Harry feel alienated,” he wrote, noting friends recalled “no speaks,” or periods where he and William weren’t speaking and “quite a serious rift between the brothers at the time.” 

The same, Lacey said, had happened “after the ‘Drugs Shame’ of 2002 when Harry had first started to realize the price of playing the functional scapegoat.”

He went on to cite “wild antics” at the Rattlebone pub, which Harry and his friend, Guy Pelly, “took the blame for” when William had been the “ringleader.” 

“It was the function of the elder brother to be perfect whether he truly was or not,” the author wrote. Meanwhile, Harry, as the “younger one,” was there to “make the rest of us laugh or complain or feel disapproving.” 

Ultimately, Harry’s “role” was to “make us feel thoroughly superior to the poor clueless kid. This was the role that all of us shaped for Prince Harry over the years.”

William doesn’t want to see Harry as Kate Middleton undergoes cancer treatment 

While Harry’s ready to “spring a surprise” on William and Kate when he’s in the U.K. for the 10-year anniversary of the Invictus Games in May 2024, his brother and sister-in-law aren’t reportedly excited at the prospect of a visit. 

“Catherine and William have been very clear they want peace and quiet for them and the kids,” a friend of theirs told the Daily Beast. “A visit from Harry, with all the drama that would bring, would be the opposite of that.”

Kate announced on March 22, 2024, in a rare video statement tests following abdominal surgery two months earlier showed cancer. She’s now in the “early” stages of preventative chemotherapy treatment. 

“They have come to terms with the estrangement from Harry and are content to let sleeping dogs lie,” another friend added. 

As for whether or not William’s been in contact with Harry or if he wanted an apology from his younger brother, one pal remarked: “They have bigger things to worry about.”

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