Expert Claims Prince Harry Had a ‘Prince Andrew Complex’ Before Royal Exit

Prince Harry and his uncle, Prince Andrew, are no longer working members of the Crown. While Harry voluntarily stepped back in 2020, Andrew was forced to step down from public duties in 2019 in light of his ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Three years later, in 2022, the Duke of York was stripped of his titles. Commenting on the two, royal expert Roya Nikkah has argued that Harry once held a fear that, like his uncle, he would one day become ‘irrelevant’ within the royal fold.

Nikkah penned for the Sunday Times, “A friend of his once told me that while he was still a working royal, he harbored a Prince Andrew complex of slipping down the pecking order and becoming irrelevant.” She explained, “Harry has always been in such a rush to make an ‘impact’ because he thinks he has a limited shelf life before the public wants to hear more from [Prince] George and his siblings, and he worries that after that, he’ll turn into this uncle.”

As the expert laid bare Harry’s fear, she also claimed the two royals share a ‘stubbornness’ that tends to ‘raise hackles’. She explained, “If Charles is changing course with Andrew, he could also try giving it a go with Harry, who has let it be known that calls to ‘Pa’ go unanswered, and he now learns about his father’s health from the newspapers.” Harry exited the royal fold alongside his wife, Meghan Markle, in January 2020. Since then, he has allegedly been estranged from his father, having last met him in February 2024, despite making many visits to the UK.

Sources close to the Duke have revealed to People magazine that his calls to his father ‘continue to go unanswered.’ An insider said, “I don’t think there is any rapprochement,” with another adding, “They are distant.” Chiming in, royal expert Sarah Hewson told The Sun that Charles continues to ignore his son’s calls given Harry’s legal fight to obtain royal security. She explained, “There is absolutely no way that the King could be seen to be intervening in this at all. Even an innocuous comment that could have been interpreted in a way and find its way into evidence in the court by Prince Harry’s barrister.”

Nikkah’s claims of Harry’s fear of being ‘irrelevant’ were also echoed by royal expert Valentine Low. In his book, Extracts of Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown, Low quoted an insider who claimed, “He would say, ‘I have this time to make this impact. Because I can. Until George turns 18, was the way he was thinking about it. ‘Then I will be the also-ran.’ He was genuinely thinking of it as, ‘I have this platform now, for a limited amount of time. I want to move forward.” Reportedly, Harry’s staff reassured him that he could still make a lasting impact if he ‘set the right foundations now,’ but their efforts did little to ease his worries.