King Charles and Prince Harry’s feud has been laid bare by experts

King Charles and Prince Harry’s true issue is a lack of trust, says an expert. Prince Harry’s relationship with King Charles soured when he claimed in his memoir Spare that his dad was distant and dubbed him the “spare.”

Following their exit as senior working royals in 2020, Harry and Meghan made various claims against the royals, including that they were worried about how dark Prince Archie’s skin color would be.

More recently, Harry revealed that Charles wasn’t speaking to him during the security case against the Home Office. The Duke of Sussex told the BBC in May: “I don’t know how much longer my father has… He won’t speak to me.”

“It wasn’t meant to be an attack, but it would be seen as one,” Valentine Low, author of the upcoming book Power and the Palace, told People of Harry’s remark. “It makes Charles reaching out even harder.”

During the interview, Harry also noted that he wants to reconcile with his family. However, experts think it’s King Charles who needs to reach out first, but no one around him is going to urge him to do so.

William remains firmly estranged from Harry, who accused him of a physical altercation in his memoir. Camilla, who was also criticized in the memoir, “stays out of it,” and even senior aides like Clive Alderton aren’t likely to ask Charles to make the first move.

“There is not a good angel in his ear to say, ‘Be a good dad and make the first move,’” said Low. According to royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, “the underlying issue is trust.”

“The King and William don’t trust Harry and Meghan with any kind of confidential conversation,” she said.

Catherine Mayer, author of Charles: The Heart of a King, weighed in, noting, “There is so much baggage there that the idea that one meeting would resolve everything is ridiculous. But having some contact would seem better than none.”

“If you have that level of breach in a family, and you are estranged, you run that risk every day of having something unfathomable to deal with,” she added. “I would like to think the King will take that step toward reconciliation with Harry in due course,” Owens said.

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