I’ll admit that I was surprised by Prince William and Prince Harry’s ability to get through the Diana statue-unveiling with zero on-camera drama. I’m sure it was tricky and I’m sure that you-know-who was incandescent about something, but they seemed genuinely… okay-ish. William didn’t have a clenched jaw or clenched fists. Harry seemed light and breezy. Harry is free and happy. William misses his brother. And that’s just how it goes. It should also be said – and is being said by Robert Lacey – that Harry and William were probably able to get through the unveiling because it was all about one thing they can agree on: their mother and her inclusion in the Windsor narrative.
Royal watchers had their eyes closely trained on Prince William and Prince Harry last Thursday, seeking signs alternately of tension or tenderness as the brothers unveiled a statue they commissioned four years ago to honor their late mother, Princess Diana. But for the brothers, the day was all about Diana. Despite disagreements and relocations in recent years, the brothers have always found their way back together in service of keeping their mother’s legacy alive in the years since her death in a Paris car crash in 1997.
“In the past quarter of a century, they have placed their mother right at the heart of the royal family,” historian Robert Lacey, author of the bestseller Battle of Brothers: William & Harry: The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. It’s “something the Queen and Prince Charles certainly wouldn’t have done,” continues Lacey, but William and Harry “have done it together.”
Lacey previously told PEOPLE that the brothers have “demonstrated a constructive way of dealing with differences. [They were] not sweeping [their differences] under the carpet,” adds Lacey, “but acknowledging more important things and doing that in a way that warmed everyone’s heart.”
Indeed, close friends and family of Diana gathered at a scaled-back but deeply meaningful ceremony to celebrate her life and work. One close friend of Diana told PEOPLE that William and Harry honored their mother not just with the statue but also with the spirit of the day itself, saying, “It was their memento, and they were very dignified about it.”
This was something I discussed while covering the increasingly frantic and panicked Middleton PR: the statue unveiling was not a “Windsor event.” It was not something the Queen and Prince Charles wanted or asked for. We don’t even know if Charles and Liz were even *invited* to the unveiling. The statue was something Harry and William wanted to show that Diana was not just part of them, but also still part of the Windsor story. Now, is all of that “enough” to get the brothers to reconcile? Of course not. What Lacey and the other royal commentators can’t even admit is that William does not want to reconcile with Harry. For William, it hasn’t been about reconciliation or compromise or apologies. William simply wants Harry’s capitulation and subservience. And Harry knows it. Still, it’s nice that they could get along for about 90 minutes for their mom.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Lacey is everywhere nowadays….
And doing nothing more than restating what happened with no additional insight.
Yeah im tired of him at this point.
Seconded.
Books sales must be underperforming. Or he’s grown addicted to being a Royal Expert In The Know.
Harry doesn’t think that his mother was paranoid, lying and that her Panorama interview destroyed her marriage, so no, he and William don’t agree.
+1000
I imagine PWT has been clenching his wizened buttocks even tighter than usual since Harry departed, because the statue unveiling – Harry’s warmth, lightness, charm, ebullience – was the equivalent of You Coulda Had A Bad Bitch tour. Hostilities were suspended on the day, but make no mistake, PWT will be seething at the comparison between his ‘relaxed’ persona – i.e. not clenching his fists, gurning, spitting his biscuit or grinding his teeth – and Happy Harry. Without Harry, PWT is a sad, rapidly ageing man, and even his Prince Charming mirror on the wall is no longer faking approval.
I am not helping myself at all with this question: how does one clench wizened buttocks? Aren’t wizened buttocks kind of… saggy due to loss of muscle definition?
omg, the pictures in my head right now.
I am off work today! After a few hellish weeks! I am using that precious time to melt my brain asking these important questions!
LaraW, hmmmm . . . I wonder if this is why W has lost weight recently? Maybe he is tightening his wizened buttocks!
Congratulations William! You managed to do the bare minimum required for civility for 90 minutes. The world should lavish you with praise!
I don’t know, Willy incandescent still looked clenched and assholey to me. And Willy only seems to want to include his mom when he isn’t gaslighting her. Harry I agree is free and Happy. He has love in his life and contentment with his beautiful smart wife and beautiful children
Im starting to think william will always look tense but what stood out to me is that he looked more relaxed at the statue unveiling, next to his brother who he is feuding with. Than on the Scotland tour with his wife.
This is spot on truth. I do believe William misses Harry. I’m sure Harry misses William. However, there can be no reconciliation while the same things are still happening.
➕💯, Over it. And Kaiser, as always, nailed it with her summation: “ What Lacey and the other royal commentators can’t even admit is that William does not want to reconcile with Harry. For William, it hasn’t been about reconciliation or compromise or apologies. William simply wants Harry’s capitulation and subservience. And Harry knows it. Still, it’s nice that they could get along for about 90 minutes for their mom.”. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Don’t forget he’d also like Harry’s divorce.
Someone needs to tell TOB’s dresser that black shoes and a navy suit aren’t friends anymore.
Harry did his job. He has professional relationships with major companies. He knows that if he looks bad it can reflect on them and he has to maintain for his family’s sake and I don’t mean those farts in the UK. But I think the fact that he left out of the ceremony asap is telling. Its not like he had a plane to catch or another engagement. And once again, by being gracious he makes William look bad. No wonder Will wanted those Scobie comments removed but its too late when the newspaper receipts are all over the internet.
Agree with all of this. Harry was charming and gracious, obviously well loved and missed by his aunts. William seemed cold and reserved. Yes, he seemed “relaxed” but that is only in comparison to his most recent appearances with Kate, not objectively. Harry came across as professional and also reflecting his mother’s personality, if that makes sense.
But Harry had no intentions of hanging around to play nice with William. He peaced out of there as fast as he could and he didnt fly home to the next day, so it wasn’t to catch a plane.
I don’t think anybody expected these 2 to break out in a fist fight. People were probably just looking for visible tension. But harry practically killed all the stories that could be made of that with his smiley self
Imagine if Diana had lived. Where would she be now? I imagine her happy, supportive of her sons, and still one of the most famous women in the world. I like to think she would have found love again on her terms with someone that adored and appreciated her. Maybe she would have had more children. She would definitely be a doting grandmother. Diana had her issues (I’m old enough to remember her engagement), but she was a global celebrity in her own right, and deserved happiness. I think she would have found it. I also think she would have been supportive of both daughters in law, knowing what came with the territory. So many what ifs.
I don’t think Diana would’ve supported a smear campaign by one daughter in law against another. She knew what a palace smear campaign felt like.
Wait… are both PWT and Kween Kate both running reconciliation propaganda at the same time? Curious.
It’s a venn diagram, really. They both love and cherish their mother’s memory and I’d imagine they think of her often and miss her terribly. But past statements by both suggest that William believes the courtier/palace lies regarding Diana’s stability, vulnerability, and overall abhorrent rewriting of history while Harry takes a more generous view of his mother as a victim of the system that trapped her though he blames the media and courtiers and his father while idk, minimizes his grandparents’s role.
This. Calling his mother paranoid and w/ever else he said makes William an asshole. After my second son died my ex couldn’t get over how son never called him or visited him when in college and was angry and wouldn’t shut up about it. I felt like he was disrespecting son. He didn’t realize busting the kid’s balls at every contact simply because he wouldn’t follow his fathers’s footsteps into the family business. I realized he ever really knew or understood son and it was such a shame because he was missed out on an extraordinary child and the man he was becoming. Maybe that’s the case with Willy.
PS As angry as ex made me so many times after son died, I have never told him what he missed.
Exactly. And that’s why Harry has f*cks to give. He KNOWS William isn’t going to change or magically become a better person. Which gives him the freedom to walk away with no regrets. It’s why at that unveiling he showed nothing but happiness and calm. Because that’s what happens when you step away from toxic people and they have no power in your life any longer.
Kaiser….I disagree with Lacey. William and Harry agreed about their mother on the day the statue was unveiled. Their statements after the BBC inquiry into the panorama interview showed clearly that they don’t necessarily agree on Diana.
There is no connection between the two of them because they already spent a lifetime papering over their non-existent relationship. Now that they legitimately can’t stand each other is when the media takes notice.