Prince William Shades Cancer-Stricken King Charles While Describing His Plans for the Monarchy
Prince William might have slighted his father, King Charles, while describing his plans for The Crown once he ascends to the throne one day.
“And to give you more of an understanding around it, I’m doing it with maybe a smaller ‘r’ in the royal, if you like. So it’s more about impact, philanthropy, collaboration, convening and helping people,” William told a journalist while in South Africa for the Earthshot Prize.
“I’m also going to throw empathy in there as well because I really care about what I do. It helps impact people’s lives and I think we could do with some more empathetic leadership around the world," he continued. "So that’s what I’m trying to bring, that’s what Catherine is trying to bring as well.”
For generations, the institution that the royal family protects built a reputation for being competitive, and William and Prince Harry's rivalry was a focal point in Spare. OK! previously reported royal biographer Tina Brown discussed the dynamic in an interview.
"The problem is they have very much the same problem that I talked about with Princess Diana and Charles, which was known as the upstage problem," Brown said on "The Ankler" podcast. "He does upstage William. There's no doubt about it, you know, on the stage."
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Diana continues to be one of the most famous women in the world despite passing in 1997, and her star power was a source of tension during her marriage.
"We'd be going round Australia for instance and all you could hear was, 'Oh, she's on the other side,’” Diana said, referring to fans being saddened by not seeing her during royal walkabouts. "Now if you're a man, or my husband, a proud man you mind about that."
“With the media attention, came a lot of jealousy," the late princess noted in her Panorama interview from 1995.
In Harry & Meghan, the Sussexes alluded to their likability being an issue for William.
"I think Australia was a real turning point," pal Lucy Fraser explained. "Because they were so popular, so popular with the public, the internals at the palace were incredibly threatened by that."
"The issue is when someone who is marrying in, who should be a supporting act, is then stealing the limelight, or doing the job better than the person who was born to do this, that upsets people. It shifts the balance,” Harry noted.
The Duke of Sussex also accused his loved ones of pushing negative stories about Meghan Markle to protect William and Kate Middleton's reputations.
“There’s leaking but there’s also planting of stories,” Harry said in the Netflix project. “So if the comms team want to be able to remove a negative story about their Principal, they will trade and give you something about someone else’s Principal."
“So the offices end up working against each other. It’s a kind of weird understanding or acceptance that happens," he revealed. “William and I both saw what happened in our dad’s office and we made and agreement that we would never let that happen to our office… To see my brother’s office copy the very same thing that we promised the two of us would never ever do. That was heartbreaking."
William spoke to The Times.