Prince Harry reveals brother William’s three-word response when he travelled back to UK

Prince Harry’s explosive memoir revealed a brutal response from Prince William during a conversation they had when he returned to the UK.

The Duke of Sussex has had a strained relationship with his brother and the rest of the Royal Family in recent years after his decision to take a step back as a senior Royal in 2020. He now resides in California with Meghan Markle and their children, Archie and Lilibet – and in ‘Spare’, released last year, he claimed that he was met with a frosty response when he tried to patch things up with his brother.

One section of the memoir recalls a tense exchange in the Palace, with the Duke writing: “My beloved brother, my arch nemesis, how had that happened? I felt massively tired. I wanted to go home, and I realised what a complicated concept home had become. Or maybe always was. I gestured at the gardens, the city beyond, the nation, and said: ‘Willy, this was supposed to be our home. We were going to live here the rest of our lives.”.

Harry says William told him: “You left, Harold.” Harry responded “yeah – and you know why”, to which William responded: “I don’t.” The 39-year-old then told of his disbelief at what his brother said, writing: “I leaned back. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.” It was one thing to disagree about who was at fault or how things might have been different, but for him to claim total ignorance of the reasons I’d fled the land of my birth – the land for which I’d fought and been ready to die – my Mother Country?”

It comes as royal fans await the release of the paperback version of Spare, which will hit shelves on October 22 in the United States and October 24 in the UK. Some had questioned whether Harry would offer up more bombshells about his relationships with other royals in an updated version of the memoir, given so much has happened since the book was published in January 2023 – including cancer diagnoses for his father King Charles and sister-in-law Kate, Princess of Wales.

In what has been seen as a potential olive branch to Buckingham Palace, publisher Penguin has confirmed the paperback version of Spare will not contain any new information. It will have the same cover image in a newly designed package, though the publisher said the “contents of the book are unchanged”.