There’s always one person in the family who ends up having to be the mediator. In the case of the royal family, it seems like that role is now going to Prince Harry, who is reportedly trying to calm things down with his brother, Prince William. All this comes after William reportedly took offense to a video Meghan Markle posted from her visit to Paris for Fashion Week.
Rob Shuter reports from palace insiders that Prince Harry is “trying to calm things privately” following William’s strong reaction to the clip, which shows Markle in a limousine being driven around Paris with her feet up on the seat in front of her. The problem? The car drove somewhat close to the tunnel where Princess Diana passed away, which is why the video has been labeled as “insensitive.”
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Shuter reported that the prince “saw the clip and went white with anger” and is now “livid beyond words.” That’s not all, “To him, it wasn’t just bad taste – it was personal desecration,” the source added. “That tunnel is sacred ground. For Meghan to treat it like a selfie moment was the ultimate insult.”
Yet another staffer told Shuter that William “said it was grotesque. He couldn’t believe she’d film herself near the very spot that destroyed his family.”
Where does Harry stand in all of this? He’s apparently doing everything he can to contain it. “Harry’s caught in the middle again,” an insider said. “He knows it looks bad but is trying to calm things privately.” Insiders also said this is, in many ways, a symptom of the fact that William “doesn’t understand social media,” pointing out that Markle’s video was “artistic, not offensive.”
Indeed, the report even says that William immediately called aides to demand “every copy of that footage be taken down,” which is very much not how things work. And others are coming to Markle’s defense, indicating they don’t believe it was meant to be offensive, even if they don’t understand the point of it.
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told The Daily Mail. “I don’t understand what on earth she was thinking. No adviser would ever advise doing something so strange,” adding, “She has every right to go to fashion events, but to share a video which had any connections with the tragic death of the Princess of Wales defies belief. She couldn’t possibly have intended to be disrespectful, but it’s another example of the Sussexes doing something that makes no sense at all.”
This new controversy comes after Prince Harry and King Charles recently met for the first time in over a year, something that was widely seen as a good first step towards a larger reconciliation. In fact, Prince Harry even suggested that, in light of it, he was willing to reconsider his position on taking his kids to the UK. But even that seemed to be done in spite of Prince William, not because of it, so we might have to wait and see if this latest development ends up putting a wrench into any possible reconciliation or not.