These little cuties have been cultural icons since the day they were born,
and they're bound for the throne. But is their black sheep uncle cool with them cutting in line?
Here's the high tea on how well Prince Harry really gets along with his brother's kids.
The world rejoiced
when Prince William and then-Duchess Kate welcomed their first child,
Prince George. During a charity event at the time, Prince Harry joked,
"It's fantastic to have a new member of the family. I hope
my brother knows how expensive my babysitting charges are."
Noting that he embraced his new role as an uncle, Harry explained his duties as being:
"To make sure he has a good upbringing, to keep him out of harm's way and make
sure he has fun. The rest of it I leave up to the parents."
Further reflecting on George's birth in his 2023 book,
"Spare," Harry was excited to pass on his own passions to the little prince, writing,
"I couldn't wait to teach him about rugby and [The Battle of] Rorke's Drift, flying and corridor
cricket — and maybe give him a few pointers about how to survive life in the fishbowl."
Well before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left royal life behind,
Harry spoke to journalist Angela Levin about his stately status, claiming via the Daily Mail,
"No one in the royal family wants to be King or Queen."
Noting that he used this mentality as a way of escaping royal rules and protocols, Harry added,
"I spent many years kicking my heels and I didn't want to grow up."
Levin then pressed him about his position in the royal line of succession. Once third — after his
father, King Charles III, and his brother, Prince William — Harry dropped in the ranks
as his brother started having children. But even though Harry had nothing but praise for
his niece and nephews, there are still politics involved in the royal pedigree.
"Are you ready? [Cheers]"
Royal correspondent Valentine Low noted in the book "Courtiers: The Hidden Power
Behind the Crown," that Harry feared George would make him irrelevant. Low asserted,
"He had this thing that he had a shelf life. […] He would say,
'I have this time to make this impact. Because I can.' Until George turns 18. […] He
was genuinely thinking of it as, 'I have this platform now, for a limited amount of time.'"
Though Prince Harry
gushed about Prince George's arrival, there was less excitement when Princess
Charlotte was born. But that may have been because he was overseas serving in
the military at the time. He reflected on the moment, writing in "Spare,"
"I went to Australia for a round of military exercises and while there I got word: Willy and
Kate had welcomed their second child. Charlotte. I was an uncle again, and very happy about it."
"It's very nice to be out, sort of out of touch from everything. I mean,
that is probably the nicest bit about this place."
Harry initially enlisted to serve a three-year tour but ended up serving
a decade. While he was glad for the chance to skip out on royal life,
he was sad to miss the birth of his niece. He said, via the Daily Mail,
"I felt very resentful. Being in the Army was the best escape I've ever had. I felt
as though I was really achieving something. […] I wasn't a Prince, I was just Harry."
When Prince Harry
became an uncle for the third time, things got even more complicated. Detailing the
awkward timing in his book, Harry wrote that then-Duchess Kate's pregnancy and the birth
of Prince Louis was a sore spot between her and Meghan. The Duchess of Sussex
infamously remarked on Kate's mental sharpness in the lead-up to Harry and Meghan's wedding.
"Any woman, when they're — especially when they're pregnant, you're really vulnerable."
Meghan reportedly commented on Kate's so-called "baby brain" and postpartum hormones,
according to Cosmo. With Kate offended by Meghan's forwardness, an argument erupted
between them. Categorized as a confrontation within the pages of "Spare," an insider told
the Daily Mail that Harry's estimations were a little vague. The source explained,
"It caused a huge row because Meghan was told that she wasn't close enough to her sister-in-law to
discuss her hormones. It wasn't the way people spoke to each other within the royal family."
Despite the family politics
plaguing their interactions, Princes Harry and William reunited to mourn the death of
their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. But perhaps one of the sweetest moments came
when Harry shared a moment with Charlotte, who was struggling with the queen's passing.
Charlotte and Harry sat next to each other during the queen's committal
service at Westminster Abbey. And as she secured her hat, Charlotte looked to her
uncle who gave her a reassuring smile — to which, she smiled back. It was a
small gesture during a very grand ceremony, but it showcased the love between the two.
Prince Harry definitely had
fun uncle potential, but things changed when he became a father himself. When Archie was
born in May 2019, the tension between Harry and Meghan, and the rest of the royal family quickly
came to light. Still, Harry tried to bridge the gap between his and his extended family.
"I don't know where William and I would be on a relationship level if the British press
weren't involved. But we would certainly be a hell of a lot closer than we are now."
At the time, Harry's little trio met up with William, then-Duchess Kate,
and their three children at a polo match in 2019. Prince George carefully watched
over Archie, who was just 2 months old, and chatted with Meghan throughout the
day. It was perhaps one of the only public interactions between Harry and William's
children and gave royal watchers a glimpse into what might have been.
As a kid, Prince Harry was
often seen flashing funny faces for the camera. And if one royal has followed in those footsteps,
it's Prince Louis. He's been making headlines with his cheeky expressions,
and meme-worthy moments ever since he was a toddler.
Harry and Louis clearly share a silly streak, but that's not the only trait
they have in common. Princess Kate explained during an event,
that Louis has picked up his uncle's favorite sport, noting via Hello,
"Louis is mad about rugby."
"It's no secret that I love top-flight rugby."
Although it has been obvious to fans of the royal family for years, Harry asserted in his book,
"I played [all] sport, though rugby captured my heart. Beautiful game,
plus a good excuse to run into stuff very hard."
Catherine shared that all of her children are into sports, just like their uncle Harry.
As Prince Harry asserts
himself as a voice of change within the royal family, he appears to have every
intention of breaking generational cycles of alleged abuse. During his press tour
for "Spare," Harry addressed his concern for Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis,
who could easily feel like the "spare" that Harry saw himself as, too. Harry told ABC,
"Who's to say that someone else doesn't fill my shoes and that their partner,
whether it's a husband or a wife or boyfriend or a girlfriend,
doesn't get treated exactly the same as Meghan did?"
But while he may have his worries, Harry alleges in his book that his
brother doesn't want him interfering in the children's lives. He wrote,
"Though William and I have talked about it once or twice, and he has made it very clear to me
that his kids are not my responsibility, I still feel a responsibility knowing that
out of those three children, at least one will end up like me, the spare."
"Within the family, as such, there's a spare,
and the heir — my brother being the heir and me being the spare."
As Harry tells it, the "spare" terminology came
about when then-Prince Charles allegedly told Princess Diana after Harry's birth:
"Wonderful! Now you've given me an heir and a spare — my work is done."
As Prince Harry
and Meghan felt the gears of the royal family shifting away from them,
one particular incident nailed the coffin shut — with Prince George at the center
of it. A photoshoot featuring Prince William, then-Prince Charles, George,
and Queen Elizabeth was sent to the masses, and according to royal biographer Andrew Morton,
Harry felt stabbed in the heart. Morton detailed in his book "Meghan: A Hollywood Princess,"
"The royal couple suspected that the entire institution was conspiring against them.
As they saw it, the evidence was all around them. The unspoken code was straightforward:
the future of the monarchy was assured, with or without Meghan and Harry."
Morton emphasized that Harry and Meghan's popularity both in Britain and abroad paled
in comparison to the importance of the monarchy's line of succession. So, Harry
requested a meeting with the queen to discuss his future within the firm. Morton assessed,
"At the last minute, the meeting was postponed. Harry suspected classic internal politics;
his family was concerned that anything the queen agreed during
informal conversations would be used by Harry as a negotiating tactic."
Though he has tried
to protect his niece and nephews, Prince Harry's relationship with Prince William
and Princess Kate's children has been mired by the brothers' feud. And sadly,
Princess Charlotte was at the center of one of the most reported arguments between Kate and Meghan.
"We had two or three meetings talking about
sketches and different ideas of how this could really come to life."
In his book, Harry noted that designer Givenchy was behind the crafting of the
bridesmaids' dresses for his and Meghan's big day. A then-3-year-old Charlotte was one of the
bridal party, and her dress was delivered ahead of the ceremony. After trying it on,
Kate claimed that Charlotte immediately started crying because the fit wasn't right,
asking that it be remade with only four days to go until the wedding. The hand-sewn dress
was made to measure, as Harry recalled it, but it wasn't enough to satisfy.
According to Harry, such insistence on Kate's part left the bride-to-be in tears just days before the
wedding. And as many of us know, the story of the rift between Meghan and Kate hit the headlines,
flipping back and forth on who was to blame and who was left in tears. Only
during Meghan's interview with Oprah and Harry's subsequent memoir did the
couple seemingly finally set the record straight on the subject. Still, with the
royal family unable to comment on the matter, we can only wonder how it really went down.