Princess Diana would have been devastated that her sons Prince William and Prince Harry no longer speak, one royal expert has claimed.
"Diana, who I met a couple of times, would be absolutely distraught to see her sons feuding in the way that they have been feuding," Tom Quinn remarked to the Mirror. "They used to fight like cat and dog sometimes when they were young, but this was just normal boy rough-and-tumble."
Dubbing their current feud "really poisonous," Quinn added of their late mother, "Diana would’ve been deeply upset by it. But she would also have been angry—she would have banged their heads together!"
Earlier this week, royal expert Charles Rae also expressed his dismay at the state of the royal brothers' relationship—especially when it comes to William being supported by his inner circle when the time comes for him to take the throne.
"They were really, really close. And this is what makes it so sad that they're now so far apart," Rae said. "When William becomes King, I always believed Harry would be one of his top advisers. I think that's out of the window."
With that said, some commentators might see Quinn's and Rae's as a somewhat romanticized view, given that William and Harry have reportedly shown signs of a much more significant rift than run-of-the-mill sibling rivalry since as far back as 2002.
Royal biographer Robert Lacey recently claimed that the two went through periods of "no speaks" over the course of the 2000s, and that their relationship was definitely not that rosy at the time.
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This clashes with the widespread narrative that it was Meghan Markle's arrival into the Royal Family—followed by the Sussexes' departure from the country—that drove the brothers apart. If Lacey is to be believed, their difficulties go way back, and have nothing to do with who married who.
Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Bustle and Shape. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.
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