Who’s in Prince Harry’s inner circle – and who’s been left out

The publication of Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, on Tuesday January 10 comes with fresh allegations of brotherly strife. It promised “raw, unflinching honesty” – and no senior royal, bar the late Queen, has been spared. But what about his friends?

In his Netflix documentary, Harry did say that he had “lost a few friends” since moving to California – which is hardly surprising. But, as leaked revelations from Spare emerge, long-time friends of Harry are said to be shocked at his lack of loyalty and discretion. Many are also close to Prince William. “I don’t know how you can do that to your brother, even if you don’t like or get on with him any more,” a friend of the family told the Sunday Times.

The Sussexes’ documentary offered unprecedented access to their private life, but they seemed like a couple in a bubble with little space for anyone except each other. Who’s left in the Duke’s inner circle?

Who’s out

The Prince and Princess of Wales

They were formerly the best of friends – billed as the ‘Fab Four’. But Spare paints a portrait of brothers at war rather than brothers in arms. In his book, Prince Harry describes his sibling in no unclear terms as his “arch-nemesis”, alleging that William physically attacked him in an argument over Meghan, who William is accused of calling “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive.”

Harry also gives the Princess of Wales short shrift. Catherine, who Harry once described as “the sister I never had,” is accused of demanding an apology from Meghan after the Duchess of Sussex suggested she had “baby brain”.

Princess Eugenie

Harry and his cousin Eugenie, 32, have been described as the “closest of friends”. She is believed to be the only royal to have visited the Duke and Duchess since they moved to California, and appears in the Netflix documentary visiting Harry in February 2022. Some hoped she could play a peacekeeper role, bringing Harry back into the family fold.

However, the publication of Harry’s autobiography could threaten their bond. Prince Harry has become the first senior royal to openly criticise the Duke of York, Eugenie’s father, over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He writes that his uncle was embroiled in a “a shameful scandal, accused of sexually assaulting a young girl” and complains that his security was removed when Prince Andrew’s wasn’t. “People have had plenty of reasons to complain about us; sex crimes weren’t one of them.”

Tom Inskip

Formerly a shoo-in for Archie’s godfather, ‘Skippy’ and Harry were inseparable from their school days. Inskip was a familiar fixture in the ‘party prince’ years and was on the guest list for the raucous 2012 trip to Las Vegas when Harry was pictured playing strip billiards.

Inskip’s wedding to Lara Hughes-Young in 2017, at which Harry is said to have been best man, was one of the first events Meghan and Harry attended as a couple.

The Duke and Skippy were thick as thieves – that is, until he reportedly suggested that Harry move in with Meghan before “doing anything more serious”, and subsequently didn’t make the list for the Royal wedding after-party. 

Guy Pelly

Pelly, a nightclub entrepreneur, is another long-standing pal of both William and Harry, and is godfather to Prince Louis. At one point, he was effectively cast out of the royal inner circle – he was accused of being the one who introduced Prince Harry to the recreational drug-taking revealed in Spare. 

When it emerged that Pelly had nothing to do with it, he was welcomed back into the fold. He reportedly visited Harry in California in 2020, but he did not appear in the Netflix documentary, nor is he listed in the book’s acknowledgments alongside other old friends.

Who’s in

Mark Dyer

Dyer, 55, is the royal aide appointed by King Charles to keep an eye on his younger son in the wake of Princess Diana’s death. He is said to be a second father figure to the Duke. In Spare, Harry reveals that Dyer was a steadying influence on him in his teenage years. When he was 17, Dyer paid him a visit at Eton College, saying that he had been sent to “find out the truth” about his drug-taking (Harry has also revealed he took cocaine, cannabis and magic mushrooms as a teenager).

Dyer – known as ‘Marko’ – is credited with “love and thanks” in the acknowledgements of the book. The Duke says Dyer is one of the sources who “helped jog my memory or else restored important details lost in the haze of youth.” He is also one of six friends who appears in the previously unseen photograph of the Sussexes’ wedding reception in 2018. His son, Jasper, was a page boy and is Prince Harry’s godson.

Charlie and Thomas van Straubenzee

The van Straubenzee brothers are key figures in Prince Harry’s inner circle and have been close to both Harry and William since their prep school days at Ludgrove. The eldest, Thomas, is also godfather to Princess Charlotte.

However, the friendship has not always been easy. Thomas has been implicated in the fall-out between Harry and William. Leaked revelations from the book claim the Duke’s role as best man at William’s wedding in 2011 was a “bare-faced lie” and van Straubenzee was in fact the “real” best man, along with another mutual friend, James Meade.

Jack Mann

Mann, 40, is a Sandhurst contemporary of Prince Harry’s who served in the Blues and Royals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recent reports suggest that, just as William had a “real” best man at his wedding, Mann was the unofficial best man for Harry.

Mann has also recently been in the news for being detained by security officials on his way to war-torn Libya. His party stated they were only visiting Libya to provide medical training. He was questioned by the Maltese police but no further action has been taken. He is the son of Simon Mann, an SAS officer turned mercenary, who was involved in the 2004 ‘Wonga’ coup to overthrow the president of Equatorial Guinea.

Tyler Perry

Fifty-three-year-old Perry may not be well known in Britain, but he is a household name on the other side of the Atlantic for his work as an actor and filmmaker. Perry first befriended the Duchess by writing her a letter in the run up to the couple’s wedding in 2018. He invited the Sussexes to stay in a Beverly Hills house he owned and also offered them security after their exit from the UK.

As a talking head in the Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, he compared the palace’s treatment of Meghan with his experience of growing up with an emotionally abusive mother. “[Meghan] was afraid of them destroying her, or going crazy, or them making her think she was crazy,” he says. “This woman was abused. And so was he.”

Oprah Winfrey

Winfrey, 68, is thanked for her “unwavering friendship and support” in the acknowledgements of Harry’s autobiography. The American talk show host conducted the bombshell TV interview with Harry and Meghan in 2021. In it, the Duchess said she had been “silenced” by the Palace and alleged Harry had conversations with an unnamed member of the royal family about “how dark” Archie’s skin would be.