11 Pivotal Moments That Pushed King Charles and Prince Harry to the Brink

The relationship between Prince Harry and his father, King Charles, has become quite fractured over the past few years. However, according to even the Duke of Sussex himself, the issues between himself and the man he refers to as "Pa" started the day he was born and continued getting more complicated as the years passed. Here are 11 pivotal moments that pushed King Charles and Prince Harry to the brink. 

Last week Harry had some not-so-nice things to say about the monarchy in his testimony against Mirror Group Newspapers for phone hacking. "Our country is judged globally by the state of our press and our government, both of which I believe are at rock bottom," Harry declared in the courtroom. "The Palace will find that extremely difficult and uncomfortable, because you can never fully separate yourself from the institution and it will have raised eyebrows on both sides of the park—at Westminster too—not least because it wasn't necessary for the core of his case," a source told The Sunday Times.

"But it only underlines the wisdom and importance of [Elizabeth II's] decisions taken at Sandringham [the family summit in January 2020], that you cannot be half-in and half-out. Those decisions are now the royal family's insurance—when one of its members continues to break with convention, they can point out that he is speaking as Harry Windsor, not as the Duke of Sussex, working member of the royal family representing the nation. Then, there is the deep irony of a member of the royal family talking about how the country is judged around the world, which is often by and through the royal family. It shows a deep misunderstanding by him."

According to the Daily Mail, King Charles has not invited Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to the King's Birthday Parade (aka the Trooping of the Color) next weekend. This will mark "the first time in Harry's life that he has not been welcome at the monarch's official birthday celebrations," and the first celebration since his father took the throne.

"I'm afraid it's a reflection of the state of relations at the moment," a source told the publication.

According to OK! Magazine, Charles isn't exactly happy about Harry shooting down an extravagant gift he wanted to get his granddaughter Lilibet for her second birthday. Charles had "his aides looking at custom-made cubby houses, similar to what the Queen and Princess Margaret had when they were girls."

However, reportedly his son shot down the plans, telling him to get something "less extravagant," the magazine reports.

Charles was reportedly livid when Harry dubbed his beloved wife, Queen Camilla, a "wicked stepmother" in his memoir Spare. He even wrote about how he and his brother, William, begged Charles not to marry her.  

Harry was livid when he and Meghan were removed from the Royal payroll. "My family literally cut me off financially, and I [needed to be able to] afford security for us," Harry alleged in his CBS interview in March 2021. "[I was cut off] in the first quarter of 2020. But I've got what my mom [Princess Diana, who died in August 1997] left me and without that, we would not have been able to do this."

In Harry's Netflix documentary, he alleges that his father's team was involved in leaking his and Meghan's plans to Megxit the country and move to Canada. "It became clear that the institution leaked the fact that we were going to be moving back to Canada," he claimed. "And the key piece of that story that made me aware that the contents of the letter between me and my father had been leaked was that we were willing to relinquish our Sussex titles. That was the giveaway."

In his Netflix documentary, Harry accused his father of lying during the 2020 Sandringham negotiations between himself and the family about his and Meghan's future roles in the family. "[I] went in with the same proposal that we'd already made publicly [about stepping down as senior working members]. But once I got there, I was given five options. One being, all in, no change. Five being, all out. I chose option three in the meeting. Half in, half out," he said.

"It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren't true, and my grandmother [Queen Elizabeth II] quietly sit there, and sort of take it all in."

The question of Prince Harry's paternity has been a hot topic for years, and in Spare, Harry reveals that his own father would joke about it. "'Who knows if I'm really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I'm even your real father? Maybe your real father is in Broadmoor, darling boy!'" Harry claims his father said.

"He'd laugh and laugh, though it was a remarkably unfunny joke, given the rumor circulating just then that my actual father was one of Mummy's former lovers: Major James Hewitt. One cause of this rumor was Major Hewitt's flaming ginger hair, but another cause was sadism. Tabloid readers were delighted by the idea that the younger child of Prince Charles wasn't the child of Prince Charles."

In Spare, Harry claims that his father and brother verbally attacked him at his grandfather's funeral. "Shoulder to shoulder, striding towards me, they looked grim, almost menacing," Harry wrote. "The thought occurred: Hang on, are we meeting for a walk … or a duel?"

He continued that after some "small talk," they "got down to business" adding that "Pa and Willy had their parts to play, and they'd come ready for a fight," he wrote. "Every time I ventured a new explanation, started a new line of thought, one or both of them would cut me off." 

In Spare, Harry writes that his father's way of telling him about his mother's death wasn't exactly supportive. "[Charles] sat down on the edge of the bed," Harry wrote. "He put a hand on my knee. 'Darling boy, Mummy's been in a car crash.'" He then told him "'I'm afraid she didn't make it,'" he wrote Charles saying.

"These phrases remain in my mind like darts in a board. He did say it that way, I know that much for sure. She didn't make it. And then everything seemed to come to a stop. Pa didn't hug me. He wasn't great at showing emotions under normal circumstances, how could he be expected to show them in such a crisis? But his hand did fall once more on my knee and he said: 'It's going to be OK.' That was quite a lot for him. Fatherly, hopeful, kind. And so very untrue."

In the memoir, Harry claims that when he was 20, he was relayed a story about what his father supposedly said to his mother when he was born. "'Wonderful! Now you've given me an Heir and a Spare — my work is done,'" Harry wrote.

"A joke. Presumably. On the other hand, minutes after delivering this bit of high comedy, Pa was said to have gone off to meet with his girlfriend. So. Many a true word spoken in jest."