{"id":419319,"date":"2025-09-12T20:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T20:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/419319\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T20:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T20:27:11","slug":"prince-harrys-charm-offensive-shows-william-how-to-be-royal-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/419319\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Harry’s ‘charm’ offensive shows William how to be royal: expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even before Prince Harry made a surprise visit to war-torn Ukraine Friday to pledge support for the country\u2019s wounded veterans, he wrapped up a \u201cquasi-royal\u201d trip to London, where he put on a happy face to support causes he cares about, announced a $1.5 million donation to a children\u2019s charity and had tea with his estranged father, King Charles III, for what could be the first step in a reconciliation with his family.<\/a><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t lost on royal observers that Harry\u2019s whirlwind week, which included a playful, \u201chigh-gusto balloon sword fight\u201d with a disabled 9-year-old girl at the WellChild Awards, overshadowed Prince William\u2019s return to official engagements after a long summer vacation with his wife, Kate Middleton, and their three children, wrote famed editor and Princess Diana biographer Tina Brown.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAt last, Prince Harry has got it right, which is bad news for the Prince of Wales,\u201d Brown wrote on her Fresh Hell Substack earlier this week<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cAs Harry\u2019s buoyant photo ops dueled with Prince William and Kate\u2019s engagements for press coverage this week, you had to ask: Who would you rather hang with? The Tigger-like Duke of Sussex or sober, appropriate William and infinitely perfect Kate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Britain'sBritain’s Prince William, Prince of Wales reacts as he meets people during his visit to new a mental health hub run by the Jac Lewis Foundation, at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, in Wales, on September 10, 2025. (Photo by Chris Jackson \/ POOL \/ AFP) (Photo by CHRIS JACKSON\/POOL\/AFP via Getty Images)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brown noted that Harry\u2019s cheery demeanor is a reminder of the prince that Britains used to adore \u2014 before he and his American TV actress wife Meghan Markle decided they could become rich and powerful global influencers if they left the U.K. and sought their fame and fortune in America, while also trashing the royal institution and Harry\u2019s family members in various venues. Harry subsequently spent the next five years damaging his public image by being the \u201cginger whinger,\u201d \u201cexuding choler and wrath\u201d and \u201cspouting therapeutic gibberish,\u201d said Brown, the former editor at Vanity Fair, the Daily Beast and the New Yorker.<\/p>\n

What Harry got right this past week, Brown said, is that he\u2019s finally accepted that all royals have to do to win public enthusiasm is to \u201czip around the U.K. and smile.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter stewing for five years as prince without portfolio in Montecito, it feels as if Harry has got over Meghan\u2019s vision of royalty as a version of global celebrity\u2014and renewed his vows to the old royal MO of being a messenger of validation,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

\"LONDON,LONDON, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 8: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex speaks with 13-year-old Ansel Hayward (left), recipient of the Inspirational Young Person 12-14 award, at the annual WellChild Awards 2025, which celebrates the achievements and resilience of seriously ill youngsters and their families, at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on September 8, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Aaron Chown – Pool\/Getty Images)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Harry and his P.R. team also reportedly agreed t<\/a>o not rush out and leak details of Harry\u2019s meeting with this father to favorite reporters, given that he has a long way to go to prove to his father that he won\u2019t go around anymore, spilling family secrets.<\/p>\n

Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell \u2014 usually such a staunch critic of Harry and Meghan that she recently called Harry \u201cdimwitted,\u201d<\/a> said he lacked William\u2019s devotion to duty and honor and called his attempt to get back into the royal fold \u201cpathetic\u201d \u2014 agreed Friday<\/a> that his visit should be a \u201cwake-up call\u201d to his older brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarry\u2019s visit brought us something we have not seen for a very long time from the royals \u2013 laughter and joy,\u201d Platell wrote in a column. \u201cWhich leaves many of us asking why William and Kate have decided to hide away and become the Prince and Princess of Boring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harry had several high-profile engagements during his four-day London trip, while William\u2019s first week back to work \u2014 after enjoying five family vacations over the past seven months \u2014 only involved two, Brown noted. One was William and Princess Charlotte\u2019s father-daughter excursion to a Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup pool match and the other was \u201ca stroll\u201d through the Natural History Museum\u2019s new gardens with his wife.<\/p>\n

To be fair to William, Harry\u2019s busy week seems to be out of the norm for him, too, given that it\u2019s generally unknown how the \u201cprince without portfolio\u201d spends his time in Montecito. His wife appears to be the family breadwinner, hustling to fund their lavish lifestyle with her critically derided Netflix cooking show and by hawking her As Ever jam, wine and flower sprinkles.<\/p>\n

William\u2019s questionable work ethic actually stands in contrast to his father, according to Brown. Despite his ongoing battle with cancer, Charles carried out has official engagements on 175 days during the past 12 months. Brown also explained how William\u2019s \u201cwork-shy\u201d ways have long created tensions with his father. The spin from William and Kate\u2019s camp is that they don\u2019t want to be so consumed by work that they ignore precious family time with George, Charlotte and Louie. But William\u2019s \u201cparenting dedication\u201d has always come across as \u201ca tacit criticism of the king\u2019s parental deficiencies,\u2019 Brown said.<\/p>\n

This is one reason that Charles may be keen to reconcile with Harry. In his own way, prodigal Harry has always been a more easy-going son than William. Brown said she was told that Charles is currently \u201cless irritated\u201d with Harry than with his older son and heir. So, it\u2019s possible that Harry will get the reconciliation he wants with his father, even though it\u2019s highly unlikely that there will be any reconciliation with William, Brown and other royal experts said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Harry was seen by some people as scoring \u00a0another P.R. win this week \u2014 and also at William\u2019s expense. His announcement that he was donating $1.5 million to the Children in Need charity didn\u2019t just steal more headlines from William, it also unleashed an \u201cuneasy\u201d question for his brother, according to Brown.<\/p>\n

Newsweek<\/a> and other outlets reported that the donation would come from Harry\u2019s personal funds, not from his and Meghan\u2019s Archewell Foundation. In the public mind, people may now ask what William does with the some $30 million a year he gets from the Duchy of Cornwall, the centuries-old royal estate that funds his annual income.<\/p>\n

On the Daily Mail\u2019s Palace Confidential YouTube show<\/a>, royal editors and columnists Richard Eden and Richard Kay tried to defend William and other royals over questions of whether they do more than just show up for photo ops and actually \u00a0reach into their own bank accounts to support good causes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge amount, make no mistake,\u201d Kay said about Harry\u2019s donation. But he explained that it\u2019s well known that royal family members have always been equally \u201cgenerous\u201d to charities. \u201cThe king, Prince William and other members of the royal have donated to charity for many, many years, but they do it quietly. They do it unobtrusively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Kay and Eden also took issue with Harry announcing the amount, with Eden accusing him of using it for his \u201cP.R. push\u201d in the U.K. \u201cWhat people have said to me is that it was really crass to to announce the amount,\u201d Eden said. \u201cSorry to be cynical but it\u2019s almost like a sort of, you know, quite transparent bid for popularity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree completely,\u201d Kay said. \u201cI thought it was extremely vulgar to specify the amount.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsweek reported that the charity receiving the donation asked for Harry\u2019s announcement to include the amount, presumably for the sake of transparency. Brown also pointed out that it\u2019s a very \u201cAmerican\u201d for major donors to specify the amounts of their contributions, especially if they can get maximum publicity from sharing the news.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: September 12, 2025 at 10:10 AM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even before Prince Harry made a surprise visit to war-torn Ukraine Friday to pledge support for the country\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,557,7714,7713,4080,30688,23900,77,533,2843,388,12,2832,532,2831,7710,519,6417,23902,7711,7712,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-419319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-catherine","11":"tag-catherine-middleton","12":"tag-celebrities","13":"tag-celebrity-alert","14":"tag-coffee-break","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-kate-middleton","17":"tag-latest-headlines","18":"tag-lifestyle","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-prince-of-wales","21":"tag-prince-william","22":"tag-princess-of-wales","23":"tag-royal-families","24":"tag-royal-family","25":"tag-things-to-do","26":"tag-tv-streaming","27":"tag-uk-royal-family","28":"tag-william","29":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115193213613112738","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}