Prince Harry has seemingly teased the ongoing royal rift with his older brother, Prince William.
During a reception before the 2025 WellChild Awards in London on Monday, Sept. 8, the Duke of Sussex reportedly asked one of the WellChild Award winners, Declan Bitmead, about his family.
WellChild is the UK’s national charity for seriously ill children, and Harry serves as its patron. This year’s ceremony happened to fall on the third anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s death.
“I’ve got a younger brother,” Bitmead, 17, told the Invictus Games founder, per Hello! magazine.
“Does he drive you mad?” Harry, 40, then asked, although Bitmead reportedly answered no.
“You know what, siblings,” the Duke of Sussex is said to have joked.
Harry further discussed how difficult it can sometimes be to have siblings after learning that Bitmead and his brother attend the same school.
“That sometimes makes it more challenging,” he told the WellChild Award winner, according to Hello!
Like Bitmead and his brother, Harry and Prince William, 43, attended the same school, Eton College, as teenagers back in the 1990s.
Harry opened up about the experience and how it “challenged” his and William’s brotherly dynamic in his 2023 memoir, “Spare.”
“Willy had told me to pretend I didn’t know him,” he wrote. “For the last two years, he explained, Eton had been his sanctuary. No kid brother tagging along, pestering him with questions, pushing up on his social circle. He was forging his own life, and he wasn’t willing to give that up.”
“None of which was all that new,” Harry continued. “Willy always hated it when anyone made the mistake of thinking of us as a package deal… And now, to attend the same school was pure murder.”
The Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan Markle, 44, have been embroiled in an ugly rift with the rest of the royal family ever since ditching their royal duties and Buckingham Palace for California back in 2020.
Although Harry is rumored to be meeting with his father, King Charles, for the first time in 20 months while in the UK this week, insiders claimed that William still has no interest in seeing his younger brother.
“Ultimately, William is a loyal soldier,” a friend of the Prince of Wales told the Daily Beast last weekend. “He respects his father’s rank, and he respects his father’s right to make his own decisions, and he won’t make a fuss if it happens.”
“But he thinks a Harry meeting is a terrible, terrible idea,” the source added.
King Charles’ former personal butler, meanwhile, suggested that there are still deeper problems preventing the royal family and Harry from fully burying the hatchet.
“There are trust issues there, but the king misses his son,” Grant Harrold exclusively told The Post. “William is worried that with the stuff Harry has said, he could use it to his advantage again … like he’s already done.”
“I think, sadly, they don’t trust him,” Harrold added. “It’s a shame, because Harry wants them to.”
But the “Spare” writer wouldn’t be the first royal to seemingly comment on the ongoing family rift.
Back in June, William appeared to take a dig at his younger brother while speaking at the Army Air Corps in Wattisham, Suffolk.
“Families okay? See you enough? Some of them might not want to see you that much,” the Prince of Wales said at the time. “It’s a mixed bag sometimes.”