Prince Harry has claimed that King Charles was uncomfortable with the level of public attention received by Prince William and Princess Kate. In his memoir Spare, published in 2023, the Duke of Sussex offered insight into royal family dynamics, alleging that his father and stepmother were wary of his brother and sister-in-law attracting too much media coverage.
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Referring to events in 2015, Harry wrote that the then Prince Charles and Camilla, then known as Camilla Parker Bowles, were uneasy about William and Kate’s popularity. He claimed that Charles did not always want William to take on visible roles, saying his father and Camilla “didn’t like Willy and Kate getting too much publicity”. Harry also alleged that palace staff were instructed to avoid photographs of Kate holding a tennis racket at engagements, as such images could have dominated newspaper front pages.
According to Harry, concerns about being overshadowed continued in later years. He claimed that when he introduced Meghan Markle to the family in 2017, his father feared the actress could “dominate the monarchy”. Harry suggested this anxiety stemmed from Charles’s past experiences, referencing the late Princess Diana, and alleged that his father struggled with the idea of another figure commanding widespread public attention.
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In 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced they would step back from royal duties and later relocated to Montecito, California. Meanwhile, official figures show that King Charles carried out the highest number of public engagements in 2024, despite undergoing cancer treatment. In contrast, Prince William and the Princess of Wales undertook fewer duties in 2025, following Kate’s cancer diagnosis the previous year and her temporary withdrawal from public life for treatment.
