Sibling relationships can be complex and messy, and the bombshell revelations from Prince Harry’s forthcoming memoir, Spare, show it’s no different for the Royals.
In the leaked extract, Harry alleges his brother William attacked him after calling his wife Meghan “rude”, “difficult” and “abrasive”, throwing him to the floor and leaving him with scrapes and bruises after he landed on a dog bowl. Wow, the gloves are definitely off!
As one of eight children, I’m no stranger to falling out with my siblings. I didn’t speak to two of my sisters, Anne and Denise, for four years after a row between them and my former partner Ray got out of hand.
Growing up in a tight-knit Irish showbiz family, we were raised never to go against “the family” and my sisters couldn’t accept I’d taken my husband’s side in the argument.
Things were said that couldn’t be overcome at the time and Anne and Denise missed my wedding to Ray.
It was our sister Bernie’s death from breast cancer in 2013 that brought us back together. We were reminded that life is fragile, our time on this planet is short and those grievances we had weren’t worth holding on to.
Sadly, the Queen’s death in September didn’t do the same for William and Harry.
You can’t take back or forget hurtful things that are said or done, but the way we dealt with it was to agree not to go back over those issues and to find a new way forward.
Harry is super protective of the woman he loves and of course he’s going to stand up for her. I feel his frustration and desperation to be heard, but if he really wants his brother and father back, the only way past it is to stop communicating through the media and get in a room together.
Their relationship will probably never be the same as it was before, but it is possible to repair it and move on in a different way.
My advice is: listen to your dad, boys, and don’t make his “final years a misery”.
When I look back on that argument with my sisters now, I feel sad that we lost four years, and it affected the whole family. I’ve learned as I’ve got older that sometimes you need to let things go and choose to go forward and be happy.
