Inside Prince Harry and Kate Middleton’s Past Friendship, According to Royal Butler originally appeared on Parade.

Before their public falling out, Prince Harry and Princess Kate Middleton were believed to have had a sweet friendship. Now former royal butler Grant Harrold is offering new insight into their past relationship.

“They involved him,” Harrold, 47, wrote about Harry, 40, in his upcoming book The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life of Royal Service, according to an excerpt published by The Telegraph on Monday, August 18. “He used to go out with Kate. William would be away, and Kate and Harry would be off doing stuff together.”

Harry would often “go shopping” and “go to pubs” with Kate, 43.

“I think when people say, ‘Oh he was left out,’ he really wasn’t,” Harrold wrote. “But also, he was with Chelsy [Davy, the Prince’s former girlfriend]. Chelsy was always around. And Chelsy and Kate got on really well.”

Harrold, who worked for King Charles III for seven years, added that Harry and Prince William were “so close.” Their relationship is now drastically different after Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down from their royal duties in 2020.

“The banter was great,” Harrold wrote of the brothers. “They used to go around being silly with each other and winding each other up, jumping out at their dad from corners and making him laugh. It was just like a family.”

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While neither Harry nor William have said much about their estrangement, the Duke of Sussex detailed some of their issues in his 2023 memoir, Spare. He claimed in the book that he and William had a physical altercation in 2019, which led to issues they have never been able to work through.

Despite their conflicts, an insider exclusively told Parade that the brothers might be able to mend their relationship amid Charles’ cancer battle. “King Charles really isn’t doing well,” the source said in an August 14 interview, adding that Charles, 76, is “deteriorating more.”

“It wouldn’t be surprising if William and Harry reconnected a bit more over this. This could be the thing that pushes it to happen,” the insider shared.

Inside Prince Harry and Kate Middleton’s Past Friendship, According to Royal Butler first appeared on Parade on Aug 18, 2025

This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 18, 2025, where it first appeared.