Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have endured a lot of challenges since leaving the royal family.
The pair’s popularity has plummeted in recent years and they remain estranged from the royals – despite Harry’s latest reconciliation efforts.
One of the couple’s most devastating moments happened in January when Vanity Fair published their brutal exposé on the Sussexes, titled American Hustle. The extensive 8,000-word investigation detailed what life was supposedly like “Inside Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s Big Business Ambitions, 5 Years After Their Royal Exit.”
The piece featured allegations about what it’s supposedly like working for the Sussexes, grievances from their Montecito neighbors and the explosive claim that someone from Meghan’s staff had contacted a publishing company to “gauge interest” in a post-divorce book. The pair vehemently denied these allegations.
Following the article’s explosive impact, former royal butler Paul Burrell offered his perspective on the accusations – and on Harry personally.
Grant Harrold, who served as a butler at Highgrove for seven years between 2004 and 2011, got to know a different side of the royal family and is now preparing to release his memoir.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Harrold questioned Harry’s claims in his book Spare that he and his brother William pleaded with their father not to get married. Harry wrote in Spare, “We support you, we said. We endorse Camilla, we said. ‘Just please don’t marry her. Just be together, Pa’.”
However, despite Harry’s assertions in the book, Harrold remembered William and Harry decorating their father’s car with Just Married signs and chasing after the car as the newlyweds drove away following their wedding reception.
The former royal staffer contradicted Harry’s memoir, stating, “The four of them, I promise you, got on so well. And that’s why I don’t understand what Harry’s said, I really don’t understand.
“Because I saw them. I saw them having dinners together, I saw them having drinks together, I saw them going to parties together.”
Harrold also reminisced about the time he spent working at Highgrove, where he observed a close relationship between William, his then-girlfriend Kate and Harry.
“They involved him,” Harrold stated. “He [Harry] used to go out with Kate. William would be away and Kate and Harry would be off doing stuff together. They’d go shopping together, they’d go to pubs together.
“I think when people say ‘oh he was left out’, he really wasn’t. But also he was with Chelsy [Davy, Harry’s former girlfriend]. Chelsy was always around. And Chelsy and Kate got on really well.”