“Short Tempered” Prince William Can Be “Difficult” to Work With, Royal Expert Says

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published 19 April 2023

Prince William apparently isn’t the easiest person to work with, according to royal expert Robert Jobson, who in his latest book Our King: Charles III: The Man and the Monarch Revealed cites a senior royal household figure as saying, “He can be difficult.”

“He is a driven person, and that can make him impatient,” the source says of the Prince of Wales.

Compared to his son, William’s father King Charles possesses more patience, the insider says, and “That can make William short-tempered when dealing with Charles. The Boss [Charles] has a temper, too, but it does not go on and on. He can get frustrated and flare up and then, in an instant, it is forgotten about. With William, it is rarely forgotten.”

Jobson—who is also William’s biographer, having released William at 40: The Making of a Modern Monarch last year—writes that Charles has been shocked by his sons’ “sometimes vicious tempers, which remind him of their late mother Princess Diana’s umbrage,” Page Six reports.

“He knew that they were both strong-willed, stubborn even; conflict would be very difficult to manage and could have a detrimental impact on the monarchy itself,” Jobson writes. “Sometimes the level of belligerence between his sons, and indeed towards him, has shocked Charles.”

Prince Harry wrote of William’s alleged temper in Spare, including a physical altercation and a separate conversation that turned “heated,” prompting Charles to intervene. According to Harry, Charles begged his sons to not “make [his] final years a misery” as their tempers flared.

Our King by Robert Jobson

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.