Kate ‘demanded’ apology from Meghan for saying she had ‘baby brain’
Prince Harry claims Princess of Wales was ‘offended’ by his wife talking about her hormones during tea at Kensington Palace in 2018
The Princess of Wales demanded an apology from the Duchess of Sussex after she suggested Kate had “baby brain”, according to Prince Harry’s autobiography.
Harry claims Kate told Meghan: “You talked about my hormones. We are not close enough for you to talk about my hormones” when the two couples met for a reconciliatory tea at Kensington Palace in June 2018.
He suggests that the “offended” Princess of Wales was holding onto the upholstered side of her chair so hard that her fingers went white.
The altercation allegedly took place over the phone when the two women had discussed the timing of wedding day rehearsals just weeks earlier.
Harry claims Meghan recalled the conversation, acknowledging that when Kate said she had forgotten something insignificant, she had suggested it might be “baby brain”.
Kate gave birth to Prince Louis, her third child, on April 23, 2018, just 28 days before Harry and Meghan got married at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018.
According to Harry, his wife looked perplexed that her sister-in-law had taken such offence and insisted it was the way she spoke to her friends.
He goes on to suggest that William then pointed at Meghan and said her “rude” comment were not the way things were done in Britain. The Duchess then apparently told William to “take your finger out of my face”.
Harry’s autobiography is due for publication on Jan 10 but has already gone on sale in Spain, where The Telegraph bought a Spanish language copy from a bookshop.
In the same chapter, Harry suggests William and Kate were also put out because the Sussexes did not give them Easter presents, and admits they took offence when the Prince and Princess of Wales switched place cards and changed seats at their wedding.
Harry says the couple had followed the American tradition of placing couples next to each other, but that William and Kate had insisted spouses sit apart on their table.
Acknowledging the pettiness of the squabbles, he writes: “Had it really come to this? Shouting at each other about place cards and hormones?”
In another part of the memoir, Harry addresses the story, which originally appeared in The Telegraph, suggesting Meghan had made Kate cry during a bridesmaids’ dress fitting for Princess Charlotte.
Acknowledging that there was a disagreement, he suggests Kate demanded that Meghan have the ill-fitting dresses completely remade four days before the wedding and then initially refused to take Charlotte to see the Duchess’s tailor, Ajay, for adjustments, even though he had been waiting since 8am.
He claims he returned home to find Meghan, who had also been dealing with the stress over her father pulling out of the wedding after suffering a heart attack, on the floor sobbing.
He adds that Kate came round the next day with flowers and a card to apologise.
Echoing Meghan’s insistence on Oprah Winfrey that it was Kate who made her cry, and not the other way round, Harry claims Kate acknowledged the story was “completely false” during another meeting between the two couples in December 2018, allegedly telling Meghan: “I know, Meghan, that I was the one who made you cry.”
He also admits the couple were envious of William and Kate’s lavish home furnishings, referencing their walnut bookshelves and priceless art, while they had to make do with an IKEA lamp and discount sofa, bought from sofa.com with Meghan’s credit card.
Harry also claims he told his father: “Don’t ever speak about my wife that way,” when Charles suggested the Duchess should not travel to Balmoral on the day Queen Elizabeth II died last September. He suggests he only found out the news after checking the BBC website.
He also reveals how Princess Anne led him upstairs to “Granny’s bedroom” to pay his respects, lamenting the fact that never got to see his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, after she died in 1997.
Harry blames the late Queen’s closest former aide, Angela Kelly, for failing to provide the tiara for a pre-wedding hair appointment, describing his grandmother’s long-standing and trusted servant as a “troublemaker”.
He also details disagreements dating back to William’s wedding to Kate in 2011, when he alleges it was “a barefaced lie” that he was his brother’s best man, adding: “Willy didn’t want me giving a best man’s speech”.
William’s close friends James Meade and Thomas Van Straubenzee ended up giving the speech, while Harry acted as emcee. Describing how the pair travelled together to Westminster Abbey on the big day in 2011, he says he could smell “the aftermath of last night’s rum” on “tipsy” William’s breath.
When it came to his own wedding, seven years later, the brothers then rowed over whether Harry should get married with a beard.
“At one point he actually ordered me, as the Heir speaking to the Spare, to shave,” he writes – even though the late Queen had given his facial hair the seal of royal approval. Emphasising the competitive nature of their relationship, Harry adds: “He hated the idea of me enjoying a perk that he’d been denied”.
In the same chapter, Harry suggests that there was tension between the royal wives from the “early days” because of a misunderstanding over Kate thinking Meghan wanted her “fashion contacts” when in fact she had her own.
This was despite the fact that, when he was invited to dinner by the couple to find out more about the woman he was dating, Harry claims William and Kate confessed that they were huge fans of Suits, the legal drama in which Meghan played paralegal Rachel Zane.
While the King is largely spared too much criticism, Harry lays into his brother, suggesting that staff took sides in the run-up to Megxit. “Team Cambridges versus Team Sussex. Rivalry, jealousy, competing agendas – it all poisoned the atmosphere,” he writes.
The comment echoes an earlier passage where he suggests that members of the Royal family are in competition over how many appearances they can clock up in the Court Circular, the annual record of royal engagements.
“Certain family members had become obsessed, feverishly trying to have the highest number,” he claims. Ever mindful of the family hierarchy, he also complains that he felt “unappreciated” after returning from the South Pole to Christmas at Sandringham in 2013, only to find himself “given a mini room in a narrow back corridor”.
He also says he “tried not to care” when Camilla turned his bedroom at Clarence House into her dressing room after he moved out, aged 28.
Towards the end of 2019, speculation was mounting about Harry and Meghan’s long-term plans, and on Jan 8, 2020 they formally announced their plan to “step back as senior members of the Royal family and work to become financially independent”.