Prince Harry and Prince William were reportedly fairly close as children. However, a former member of staff for the Royal Family has suggested Harry envied some of the "special treatment" his brother seemed to be getting as the future heir.
While appearing on the Channel 5 documentary The Palace: What the Royal Servants Saw, Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, discussed some alleged favoritism that occurred when the princes were young. "I heard one of the nannies say to William, 'I'm going to give you three sausages, William,'" Burrell claimed (via the Express). "'You need to grow big and strong, because you're going to be king one day.'"
According to Burrell, Prince Harry's reaction to the perceived "special treatment" was devastating. "Poor Harry's face across the table," Burrell recalled. "I looked at him [and knew he was thinking], 'Why did you get three sausages and I got two?'"
This isn't the first time Burrell has spoken about the royal brothers. In 2024, the former butler spoke to The Sun about the alleged royal rift between Harry and William. "There's no love lost between Diana and Charles, but what was important to Diana is that both boys should have been influenced by both parents, and she would have wanted them to respect their father," he claimed. "She would have made Harry apologize to Charles, and Diana would have been the broker of that—she was always the peacemaker."
Burrell has also seemingly criticized Harry on multiple occasions since the Duke of Sussex stepped down as a senior member of the Royal Family. In 2023, the former royal staffer shared his unhappiness with some of the contents of Prince Harry's memoir, Spare. As he told Marie Claire, "I was really upset, really upset [by] the fact that he referred to me as 'the butler.'" Burrell continued, "Well, mummy's butler was called Paul, Harry, and you knew me, all your life you've known me as Paul."
Expanding on his dismay, Burrell said, "He had never known me as 'the butler,' so why suddenly has there been a shift only recently, a shift to being called the butler? Suddenly I'm sort of being dismissed."
