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Prince Harry’s recent comments prove he is desperate to save his fractured relationship with his brother, Prince William, royal experts say. 

Recently, the Duke of Sussex spoke to GQ about his new MasterClass, Redefining Grief: Building Resilience Through Loss. During the conversation, he reflected on his relationship with his father father, King Charles, and his older brother. 

“Some people don’t want it to work out. I want it to work out … Of course I do. Again, with everything else that’s going on in the world, the most important thing is to reconcile. That’s the key point,” he said. 

In a statement, a rep for Harry clarified that the prince was speaking in general terms about complicated family dynamics and was not specifically speaking about his sibling. But William may not see it that way. 

“Will William respond? I would be astonished if he responded publicly,” Tom Sykes, European Editor at Large of The Daily Beast and author of The Royalist Substack, told Page Six. “He never does, and his silence is itself the response.”

“Will it have frustrated him? I’m sure it will,” he added. “Being lectured in public about reconciliation by the person who has caused the problem is exactly what William finds so hard to forgive.

Royal commentator Carole Malone argued that if Harry’s real goal is to reconnect with his estranged brother, he’s going about it all wrong. 

“Every time the man opens his mouth in public it causes an international incident and puts an even bigger wedge between himself and the family he says he’s desperate to reconcile with,” she wrote in an article for the Express. 

“Actions have consequences and Harry’s fast realizing what those are – the Royal Family, but particularly his own brother, want nothing to do with him or his wife,” she added. “Doesn’t Harry see that lecturing William in public about reconciliation when HE’S the one who has caused all the problems is going to incense him further? As is his intention of making Wills look like he’s the unreasonable one because he won’t kiss and make-up.”

Harry and William’s once-close relationship has been strained since Harry’s now-wife Meghan Markle entered the picture. The future king reportedly advised his brother to take things slower with the Suits star, advice that Harry felt was unsupportive. Harry and Meghan’s decision to step back as working royals in 2020 and relocate to California was a further wedge between the brothers. The breach apparently became irreparable after Harry’s 2023 memoir Spare. The two have not spoken since September 2022, when they met at their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. 

“Relations between the Sussexes and the Wales remains at an all-time low,,” royal expert Katie Nicholl told ET in 2024, adding, “I don’t believe that there has been much contact, if any at all.”

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