Prince William and Prince Harry, once famously close, have gone more than two years without speaking, a rift that some say might have been avoided had Princess Diana still been alive.
Paul Burrell, the late Princess’s former butler, recently shared his candid view on Harry’s choices, suggesting that Diana would have guided her youngest son along a very different path particularly when it came to his marriage to Meghan Markle.
In an interview with The Mirror, Burrell didn’t hold back, referring to the Sussexes as “Ginge and Whinge.”
He said, “Would Diana have been disappointed by Harry’s behaviour in the last few years? Yes, she would have.”
He added that Diana had hoped Harry would stand by The Prince of Wales as he prepared to assume the throne, a support system that now seems absent.
“William’s on his own now, and he’s resigned to that. To him, his brother can’t be trusted,” Burrell noted, highlighting the deep strain that continues to shadow the brothers’ relationship.
Recalling the raw grief Harry carried as a 12-year-old, the butler said, “Harry was awfully hurt when his mother died. I know, I was there. He ran into my arms when he returned from the funeral.”
Yet, he added, “There’s something about Harry which has gone wrong. Yet William hasn’t gone wrong. And he lost his mother, too.”
Burrell suggested that while Harry’s quest for independence may have made sense in principle, the outcome has been jarring even for those closest to him.
“I just don’t understand all this petulance and entitlement these are new things that have come his way. And I don’t know who sowed those seeds, because they were never there as a child,” he explained.
“Where is that lovely, jokey boy now? He grew up into someone different, almost unrecognizable. He used to be kind, generous, warm, and carefree.”
Diana had long emphasized Harry’s role in supporting William through what she called the “lonely task” of future kingship.
Royal biographer Andrew Morton reflected, “We all remember the days when Harry and William were joshing with one another, and it all seemed set for their relationship and the future.”