Though we continue to hope for relations to improve, royal author Katie Nicholl told Entertainment Tonight that, unfortunately, it seems that the fractured and frayed relationship between brothers Prince William and Prince Harry has hit an “all-time low”—as evidenced by a high-society U.K. wedding happening today where one brother is in the wedding party, and another brother isn’t even there.
To know the depths to which this feud has fallen, let’s introduce one Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster, who today married Olivia Henson. Grosvenor is one of the few mutual friends of both William and Harry who has stayed close to both brothers through the tumult of the past few years; he is godfather to both men’s eldest children, Prince George and Prince Archie, as proof of how much he means to the brothers.
William is serving as an usher at the ceremony, while Harry, knowing this bit of information, respectfully declined to attend, with Marie Claire reporting earlier this week that Harry and Grosvenor came to an “understanding” that it would probably be best if Harry didn’t come to the wedding.
“Harry very diplomatically declined the invite, because he knew it would just be too awkward for him to be even in a venue as large as Chester Cathedral with his brother,” Nicholl said. As for Grosvenor, “I think he was in a very difficult position when it came to invitations and, of course, seating plans and everything else,” she added.
William being an usher would only have added to the discomfort of the situation: “Part of that role will be to show other guests to their seats, so you can only imagine how awkward it would be if Harry and Meghan turned up, and it was William showing them to their seats,” Nicholl said. “But he won’t have to come into any awkward encounters. He’ll know many of the people there—William’s going to feel very much at home and will, I’m sure, consider it a great honor to be asked to be an usher. It is a privilege.” (Though the Princess of Wales didn’t accompany her husband and she continues to focus on her health, George was reportedly selected to be a pageboy, and William’s cousin Princess Eugenie was spotted at the wedding.)
Harry also likely declined today’s invitation because he didn’t want to overshadow Henson and Grosvenor, who have been dating since 2021 and who announced their engagement in April 2023. “I think the thing with Harry turning up is, it’s always going to generate headlines, and therefore risk overshadowing whatever it is that he’s attending,” Nicholl said. “I suspect if you’re the groom and you’ve got this huge society wedding, that’s probably not what you want.”
Harry missing Grosvenor’s wedding is but one branch off of a much larger tree when it comes to the brothers-at-odds: “Relations between the Sussexes and the Wales remains at an all-time low,” Nicholl said. “I’m told that William and Harry really are not even on speaking terms.”
The bond between the brothers shattered years ago, and was only exacerbated by Harry’s book, Spare, in which it can be argued that William bears the brunt of the book’s 416 pages. One would have hoped that the one-two punch cancer diagnoses of their father, King Charles, and William’s wife (and someone who Harry once considered more of a sister than a sister-in-law) Kate would have helped mend fences, but Nicholl said that “his relationship with his sister-in-law [Kate] also remains strained,” and “I don’t believe that there has been much contact, if any at all” between not just Harry and William but Harry and Kate, too.
