Why does Prince Harry think he was thrown under the bus?
And what did Queen Camilla really think about her stepson's presence at the coronation?
It goes without saying that the royal family drama has only increased since she and King
Charles III dawned their crowns.
Prince Harry's drama with Camilla, Queen Consort, started way back in the 1990s.
During this time, his parents, King Charles III and Princess Diana, were going through
their excruciatingly public divorce — no thanks to Charles' scandalous affair with
Camilla.
"I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him,
and I don't know whether he could adapt to that."
Like many young children of separated parents, Harry struggled to process the breakdown of
his family life.
According to the book William and Catherine by royal expert Andrew Morton, when Diana
headed to the Ludgrove School to explain the situation to her two sons,
"Harry seemed bewildered and almost indifferent."
His initial confusion, however, was soon replaced by an all-too-deep sense of understanding.
In his memoir Spare, Harry recalled writing letters home from school, saying,
"I could barely remember when Pa and Mummy weren't divorced, so writing to them without
touching on their mutual grievances, their messy breakup, required the finesse of a career
diplomat."
Harry grew to resent Camilla for her role in all that transpired.
This was particularly evident during his 60 Minutes interview.
Reflecting on his history with his stepmother, Harry shared,
"She was the villain.
She was the third person in the marriage."
Royal expert Tina Brown wrote in her book The Palace Papers, that Harry spent his younger
years icing Camilla out, saying,
"When the younger boy was eventually prevailed upon to be in the presence of Mrs. Parker
Bowles, he unnerved her with long silences and smoldering, resentful stares."
In Spare, Harry opened up about the concerns he had regarding Camilla when he was a child,
writing,
"I recall wondering [...] if she'd be mean to me.
If she'd be like all the wicked stepmothers in storybooks."
According to Harry, his older brother also had concerns over Camilla's influence on their
father and her role in the family.
Unlike his younger brother, however, William is understood to have moved on from these
feelings.
As Brown told The Telegraph,
"William has accepted Camilla in terms of what she means to his father.
He's been grown-up about it."
The respective heir and spare to the British throne were said to struggle with the idea
of accepting Camilla, Queen Consort, as their father's wife, even as King Charles III had
already started planning their engagement.
According to Spare, the young princes begged Charles not to marry her to no avail.
Harry wrote,
"Despite Willy and me urging him not to, Pa was going ahead.
We pumped his hand, wished him well.
No hard feelings.
We recognized that he was finally going to be with the woman he loved, the woman he'd
always loved."
Charles never intended to ask William and Harry's permission to tie the knot with Camilla.
The decision was the result of a much wider discussion within the palace about what to
do about the couple's long-standing yet unofficial relationship.
And, by the time he talked to the boys, the matter was essentially settled.
But Charles did have the sense of decency to clue his sons into his plans before they
actually took place.
During that fateful Christmas of 2004, Charles spoke to his mother and two sons about the
next steps in his relationship with Camilla.
By New Year, Charles had proposed, and by February, the engagement was known to the
world.
It's no secret that British royals are expected to behave in a certain way.
For instance, royal dinner parties are packed with rules about how to hold a knife – in
your right hand – and when to stop eating – which is whenever the monarch stops eating.
Meanwhile, daily life is full of protocol, which dictates everything from which color
nail polish is considered acceptable – beige, of course – to how often you can use the
word "toilet."
The answer to that is never.
Given these rather intense standards, many of Prince Harry's adolescent antics were perceived
as anti-royal, rather than typical teenage rebellion.
And the press worked hard to portray him as a poorly-behaved teen.
According to a written statement that Harry submitted in a lawsuit against the Mirror
Group Newspapers, Harry found himself so overwhelmed by the criticism that he lashed out at his
father.
"He's choosing a court case over the royal family.
It's totally against the Queen's mantra: never complain, never explain."
During a blow-out argument, Harry admitted that he verbally attacked Charles, "telling
[his father] that he had no right to lecture [him] on morals."
Of course, this reference to Charles' affair reveals Harry's resentment towards the fact
that his father had been permitted to commit adultery and still remain in relatively good
standing with the public.
Harry, meanwhile, was just a teenager, yet he was the one portrayed as a playboy prince.
Prince Harry's hard feelings aside, the British people did eventually come to accept King
Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort.
This was the result of a palace-wide campaign to improve Camilla's public image.
As noted by Charles' former press secretary, Colleen Harris, the tabloid press had profited
tremendously from the idea of Camilla as a sort of wicked witch.
Speaking with Vanity Fair about this issue, Harris explained,
"[The media] made a lot of money out of the story that Camilla was this evil, horrible
person who ruined Diana's life and was ruining the children's lives, and they wanted that
story to continue."
The palace worked hard to present Camilla in a more human, relatable light, and the
campaign was relatively successful.
Sadly, though, the strategy to improve the queen consort's reputation might have fed
Harry's feud with Camilla.
According to the prince, his stepmother actually leaked negative stories about him and his
brother to the press as a way to boost her image.
The prince wasn't thrilled with Camilla's post-engagement interactions with the press,
writing in Spare,
"Stories began to appear everywhere in all the papers about her private conversation
with Willy, stories that contained pinpoint accurate details, none of which had come from
Willy, of course."
Because of the alleged leaking of stories to the press, Prince Harry felt that Camilla
had used him as a tool for self-promotion.
This element of Harry's feud with Camilla was particularly evident in Spare when the
prince accused his father and stepmother of exposing his history of drug misuse to the
world.
"I mean, this guy seems to have had more drugs inside him than you could get in a chemist
shop."
Harry claimed that, in 2002, King Charles III and Camilla decided to inform the press
that the prince would be spending time at a drug rehabilitation center trying to get
clean.
Or, as the prince so eloquently put it, the couple threw him, quote, "right under the
bus."
Apparently, the idea was to make the public see Charles as a more sympathetic figure.
Harry also alleged that there were moments when his brother felt violated by Charles
and Camilla's press strategy.
According to Spare, after Prince William hit a particularly memorable snag with their father
and stepmother in 2019,
"He was seething, actually.
I gathered Pa and Camilla's people had planted a story or stories about him, and Kate, and
the kids."
This reportedly infuriated William, who is said to have declared,
"Give Pa and Camilla an inch [...] they take a mile."
Ultimately, these interactions made Harry feel used.
He wrote that Camilla's relationship with the tabloids impacted their relationship:
"I had complex feelings about gaining a step parent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed
me on her personal P.R.
altar."
Of course, there are two sides to every story, and Camilla, Queen Consort, doesn't agree
with her stepson's version of events.
On the contrary, it's believed that she was caught quite off-guard by the accusations
Harry made in Spare.
Her close friend, Fiona, the Marchioness of Lansdowne, told the Sunday Times that the
queen consort was hurt by Harry's comments, saying,
"Of course it bothers her, of course it hurts."
Unfortunately, Camilla wasn't the only person who suffered upon the publication of Spare.
Charles is said to be extremely hurt by the way that his son publicly attacked the woman
he loves.
As one royal insider told Us Weekly,
"Charles is distraught.
He's angry and outraged that Harry's aired so many embarrassing and damaging assertions,
and it's put him in a terrible position with Camilla, of course, now that she's been dragged
into the equation."
To make things worse, it seems that Charles is overwhelmed by the sheer number of accusations
that Harry has put forward.
The same source claimed,
"There are so many egregious comments and revelations from Harry that his father doesn't
know where to start."
It's perhaps unsurprising that Prince Harry was less than thrilled to watch his stepmother
crowned queen.
As noted by at least one royal insider, the prince has long struggled to accept Camilla's
role in his father's life out of loyalty to his late mother, Princess Diana.
After all, in Harry's eyes, it was Diana's destiny to become the queen of England, not
Camilla's.
"She was one of the best examples of soft power that Britain possessed."
One anonymous — yet highly-ranked — palace official told Page Six,
"His mother was meant to be queen, and Camilla will always be the woman who led to his parents'
divorce."
Although it is, in some ways, sweet that Harry continues to defend his mother's right to
the crown, Diana herself had conflicted feelings about taking the throne.
In private tapes that she made for biographer Andrew Morton, Diana recalled the day that
Charles proposed to her, saying,
"He sat me down.
He said, 'Will you marry me?'
And I laughed.
I remember thinking, 'This is a joke.'
So I said, 'Yeah okay.'
And he was deadly serious.
And he said, 'You do realize that one day you will be queen.'
A voice said to me inside, 'you won't be queen.'"
Prince Harry has made it clear that he is not one to sweep family drama under the rug,
prompting Camilla, Queen Consort, to keep the prince at bay.
Apparently, she was far from thrilled to learn that Harry would be attending the coronation,
as her interactions with him have been quite tense.
One royal insider even told Radar that Camilla disagreed with King Charles III's decision
to invite his son to the event, telling the outlet,
"Camilla agrees with Prince William, this [invitation] was a spineless move and Charles
should have banished Harry and Meghan from the kingdom instead — sending the clear
message their traitorous poison won't be tolerated."
The insider went on to divulge that Camilla was concerned for how Harry's attendance would
impact the image of the monarchy, stating,
"She believes Charles' decision has weakened their popularity."
Unfortunately, Camilla's drama with Harry may have had a negative impact on her marriage.
It's been reported that Charles has grown displeased with his wife's strong stance on
the Harry issue.
The same unnamed source claimed,
"Charles finds her behavior disruptive and disrespectful.
He's sick and tired of people questioning his decisions and trying to undermine him.
[...] Charles and Camilla are testy with each other.
They can't sit and have a meal without arguing."
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, didn't show up at Ascot in 2023, and
Camilla, Queen Consort, was not upset about it.
The palace wanted Ascot to be a dignified occasion, separate from all the scandals that
have rocked the royal family since Harry published his incendiary memoir.
As one royal insider told Page Six,
"The gossip in the royal enclosure was how happy everyone was that Meghan and Harry weren't
here."
Apparently, King Charles III has chosen to support his wife in her choice to distance
herself from the couple.
Another inside source shared,
"Camilla tells Charles [the Sussexes] make her uncomfortable, and Charles loves her unconditionally
— he made her queen and will choose her well-being over them every time."
This isn't the first time Camilla has faced bad press, and she's developed the mental
toughness to deal with it all.
During Princess Diana's divorce from King Charles III, Camilla was one of the most despised
women in the United Kingdom.
But, as one of her employees told Express, the queen knows how to keep calm and carry
on:
"If you think of all the years when she nearly had a bread roll thrown at her — how did
she respond throughout that period?
She was just really stoic."
Fiona, the Marchioness of Lansdowne, explained Camilla's thought process, saying,
"Her philosophy is always, 'Don't make a thing of it and it will settle down — least said,
soonest mended.'"
In other words, Camilla intends to wait for the drama to die down and then move on with
her life.