Prince Harry needed to speak to someone after his alleged physical altercation with Prince William but didn’t want to tell Meghan Markle, so described the incident to his therapist
In his tell-all memoir Spare, Prince Harry recounts being ‘knocked’ to the ground by his older brother during an alleged confrontation at Nottingham Cottage in 2019.
Harry sensationally claims he was left with bruises and cuts on his back after Prince William grabbed him by the collar, ripped his necklace, and knocked him into a dog bowl. And according to the Duke’s account, the Prince of Wales then asked him not to tell his wife, Meghan Markle, about the incident.
Harry admits that while he wanted to honour his now estranged brother’s request, he felt the need to speak to someone and ultimately reached out to his therapist. In Spare, Harry writes: “I apologised for the intrusion, told her I didn’t know who else to call. I told her I’d had a fight with Willy, he’d knocked me to the floor. I looked down and told her that my shirt was ripped, my necklace was broken.
READ MORE: Prince William set to upset Meghan and Harry with controversial move
“We’d had a million physical fights in our lives, I told her. As boys we’d done nothing but fight. But this felt different.” He says that his therapist told him to take deep breaths and describe the scene several times, which made it seem more like a ‘bad dream’ every time.
Feeling calmer, Harry then told the therapist that he felt “proud of myself” because he didn’t hit William back. While Harry did stay true to his word and didn’t tell Meghan, he says she discovered what happened when she saw him coming out of the shower. Unable to lie to her, Harry explained how he got the scrapes and bruises, which left her feeling “terribly sad” rather than angry.
Harry claims that William arrived at Harry’s royal cottage to talk about their relationship already “piping hot”, with their pair shouting over each other in the squabble.
During the argument William is said to have called Megan “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive” – comments which the younger brother said parroted “the press narrative” about his wife. According to the book, Harry then dismissed his brother’s claims he was trying to help and went to the kitchen where he told him “Willy, I can’t speak to you when you’re like this”.
The Duke writes: “He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog’s bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.”
The Prince of Wales reportedly asked his brother not to tell Meghan about the confrontation in the aftermath, resulting in Harry saying: “You mean that you attacked me?”, to which he responded: “I didn’t attack you, Harold.”
Elsewhere in the book, Harry reveals that a worried Prince William expressed concerns for his younger brother. According to Harry, his older sibling told him that he believed he’d been “brainwashed” by the therapist he was seeing.
In Spare, Harry outlines the moment where he claims the Prince of Wales said he wanted to come along to one of his confidential therapy sessions. Harry claims William wanted to join for support because he was worried about what his younger brother was being exposed to.
The Duke of Sussex accuses William of believing “I was unwell, which meant I was unwise” as he made plans to leave royal duties for a new life in a different country.
In the excerpt from the bombshell book, Harry says he offered to try to mend their relationship with a joint therapy session as it would be “good for you, good for us”. William reportedly turned down the offer – but has been vocal in his public support of mental health causes, which he has made one of his key missions.
Harry did not hold back in his account of William – even writing about his brother’s lack of hair. During his chat with Anderson Cooper on NBC’s 60 Minutes, the American presenter pointed out the harshness of his words.
Cooper said: “You write about a contentious meeting you had with him in 2021. You said, ‘I looked at Willy, really looked at him maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in, his familiar scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me, his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own, his famous resemblance to Mummy which was fading with time, with age. That’s pretty cutting.”
Insisting this was not the case, Harry replied: “I don’t see it as cutting at all. Um, you know, my brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years. None of anything I’ve written, anything that I’ve included is ever intended to hurt my family.
“But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers.”
READ MORE: ‘Gorgeous’ £9 body spray perfume ‘just as good if not better than Sol de Janeiro’