I’m not surprised that People Magazine’s cover story this week is about Queen Elizabeth II. Her centenary birthday is coming up soon, which is why there’s a glut of “biographies” about her. Those biographies are, by and large, actually about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, obviously. Biographers swear up and down that the dead queen hated Harry and Meghan, never wanted to speak to them alone, was irritated that they named their daughter Lilibet, and that she personally authorized Angela Kelly’s eight-years-long smear campaign on the Sussexes over a fakakta tiara. What those biographers fail to mention is that in her life, she actually seemed to stay friendly, if not close, with the Sussexes. They also don’t mention that QEII knew that Charles and William would be terrible kings and that’s why she tried to hang on for as long as possible. Well, People Mag’s cover story is partially about why QEII didn’t fix Prince Harry and Prince William’s estrangement in her final years.
The royal family is missing their matriarch, Queen Elizabeth, who died on Sept. 8, 2022, ahead of what would be her 100th birthday in late April. In this week’s PEOPLE cover story, sources address the ongoing, six-year rift between Prince Harry and Prince William — and how the late Queen Elizabeth might have offered her support behind the scenes were she still alive.
“She saw both of them, even after the estrangement,” a source close to the palace tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “She also believed that you might have views, but you don’t have sides. She knew that families are complicated.”
Ailsa Anderson, a former press secretary to the Queen, adds, “It’s very difficult. The only two people who can mend this are themselves. She could have been the convener, but they have to take the first steps.”
While the brothers’ relationship remains strained, a source also tells PEOPLE that there have been gradual efforts to repair Prince Harry’s relationship with his father, King Charles, and the two have been talking more since their reunion in September 2025.
Prince Harry, 41, and Prince William, 43, have had a fraught relationship for several years. It’s been widely reported that the brothers’ rupture began in 2016 when William expressed concerns about how quickly Harry’s relationship with Meghan Markle was moving. In his memoir Spare, Harry revealed the complexities of his relationship with William, which, despite a public image of closeness, was marked by tension. Harry described William as both his “beloved brother and arch nemesis,” recounting instances of verbal and even physical altercations between them.
Tensions between the couple and the royal family continued to mount in subsequent years as Harry and Meghan, 44, moved to California in 2020, broke from the royal mandate of “never complain, never explain” and shared their grievances about royal life in various high-profile interviews, a Netflix series and Harry’s 2023 memoir.
In a new book by Russell Myers, William and Catherine: The Monarchy’s New Era: The Inside Story, the author claimed that William was left “absolutely seething” by what he saw as his brother’s betrayal.
“He felt betrayed by Harry to the extent that he vowed never to speak to him again,” Myers wrote. “Such was his anger that he told one of his most trusted aides that he had “absolutely no time to entertain either of them [Harry and Meghan].”
However, Myers said that it’s Kate, 44, who has been the steadying force for his husband amid the estrangement and the multitude of other stressors that come with being the future king of England. “Her attitude was consistently ‘this will pass,’ ” he wrote of the Princess of Wales. “Whenever William would get riled up about it, she would calm the situation down and bring him back to what matters most to them. That is their family and what they are doing.”
Years ago, there were a few stories which I believed about QEII. One, she had one precondition for meeting Harry and Meghan before Easter 2022 – that Harry speak to his father. And I also believe that she said something along the lines of “you know what your father is like” to Harry. QEII saw Charles’s flaws and she saw that he was (and is) a dogsh-t father, and I think she was actively trying to encourage father and son to have some kind of reconciliation, or for Charles to mimic her approach to the Sussexes. Of course, as soon as she died, Charles’s first act as king was to bitch out Harry and tell him that Meghan was banned from Balmoral, which certainly set the petty, vile tone for his reign. But my point is that I believe QEII cared more about making sure Charles and Harry spoke and had some kind of relationship, as opposed to her caring about Harry and William’s feud.
As for Harry and William’s feud, I believe Harry’s story, in Spare, where he noted that William had some kind of shrieking rage-fit during the Sandringham Summit, and his childish tantrum was witnessed by QEII. Everyone in that family, even QEII, walked on eggshells around William for a reason – he’s violently stupid and ill-equipped to handle stressful or difficult situations. Meaning, I think there’s a reason why QEII never really bothered to encourage William and Harry to reconcile. She probably thought S-P-A-C-E was the best option.
Cover courtesy of People. Photos courtesy of Instar, Cover Images, Avalon Red and Backgrid.
