• Former royal butler Grant Harrold said that he never saw any “animosity” between Prince Harry and the rest of his immediate family—despite an ongoing family rift that has lasted for years.
  • Harrold worked for Prince Charles when he married Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005, and said that the former Prince of Wales was the “happiest” he’d ever seen him during that period.
  • Charles’s sons Harry and Prince William also seemed happy with the marriage, even decorating the couple’s car as they drove away from their wedding ceremony.

From his vantage point, royal butler Grant Harrold said he never saw any issues between Prince Harry and the royal family—and said that Harry and brother Prince William seemed supportive of their father Prince Charles’s 2005 marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles.

Prince William, Queen Camilla, Prince Harry, and King Charles in 2009.

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Speaking to The Telegraph ahead of the publication of his book The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life of Royal Service, Harrold said that when he started working as a butler to the future King Charles—whom Harrold called “very gentle”—Charles and Camilla were still living apart, but they spent ample time together. When they married in 2005, Harrold said that Charles was the “happiest” he had ever seen him.

After they married, “Charles and Camilla were catching a flight to head straight to Birkhall [on the Balmoral estate],” Harrold wrote. “We all went outside to wave them off and laughed as we saw William and Harry had decorated their car with ‘Just Married.’”

“As they drove off through the arches to cheers, the boys raced after the car,” Harrold added.

King Charles and Queen Camilla on their 2005 wedding day.

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Harrold’s retelling of the events of that April day 20 years ago differs from Harry’s, who wrote in Spare—his 2023 memoir—that he had “complex feelings” about Camilla marrying his father, adding that William did, too.

“‘We support you,’” Harry wrote. “‘We endorse Camilla,’ we said. ‘Just please don’t marry her. Just be together, Pa.’ He didn’t answer. But she answered. Straight away.”

Queen Camilla, King Charles, Prince William, and Prince Harry in 2017.

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“Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game, a campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the Crown (with Pa’s blessing, we presumed),” Harry continued.

Harrold added that Charles, Camilla, William, and Harry “got on so well,” which is why Harry’s account of his rift with the royal family has been so confusing to the former royal butler.

“The four of them, I promise you, got on so well,” Harrold said. “And that’s why I don’t understand what Harry’s said. I really don’t understand.”

Prince William, Queen Camilla, King Charles, and Prince Harry in 2014.

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“I saw them having dinners together, I saw them having drinks together, I saw them going to parties together,” Harrold continued, adding that he saw “no animosity” between Harry and his immediate family during his time as a royal butler.

“The King used to do things to make them laugh and giggle,” Harrold said. Of the King specifically, Harrold added that Charles was “very calm” and “didn’t once raise his voice” when he worked with him: “He works hard and he doesn’t suffer fools,” Harrold said. “He gets on with everyone. He does get perceived as out of touch, and he’s not.”