Most Shocking Royal Family Feuds in History

Credit: Tim Graham/Getty Images

Most Shocking Royal Family Feuds in History

They may be royals, but life is not always a fairy tale for the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth II has had to deal with a lot of drama over the years. Back in the ‘80s, the marriage of her son King Charles and Lady Diana Spencer rocked England after it was revealed the prince still had feelings for his ex Camilla Parker-Bowles. Fast-forward to 2018 — when Meghan Markle joined the family after she married Prince Harry — and multiple new family feuds were born. (Here’s looking at you, Thomas and Samantha Markle!) Not long after Meghan and Harry announced their engagement in 2017, it became clear that the Suits alum didn’t have a close relationship with half-sister Samantha. “Hopefully we can have a heart to heart,” Samantha told Us Weekly at the time. “I want her to know I’m wishing her well and there for her. At the end of the day, I want her to know that the love is there.” Leading up to the royal wedding, however, things between Meghan and her dad’s side of the family got worse. In addition to Thomas getting caught staging photos with the paparazzi, Samantha announced plans to write a book titled The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister. Part 1 of the book was released in February 2021. [jwplayer rUWo7apj-l3ahXupL] “Contrary to troll gossip and aggregate news rumors, my book has never been designed to attack my sister,” Samantha told Us at the time. “It’s relatable. There’s a lot to learn — the good, the bad and the ugly. I’ve been very forthcoming that I was never writing a hardbound tabloid. I said that two years ago, but nobody wanted to believe it.” In the book, Samantha revealed that the last time the sisters had spoken was in December 2015. Their relationship had already been strained for two years, according to the Florida native. "It seemed as though she was excited to hear from me," Samantha wrote, citing the frequent missed communication of their "completely different schedules" at the time. She went on to allege that Meghan “changed” after she met Harry. The former actress isn’t the only one who has sibling drama, however. Harry and Prince William’s relationship has been strained in recent years too. The brothers’ rift deepened in January 2020 when Harry and Meghan announced plans to step back from their senior royal duties and relocate to the United States. “William’s done everything in his power to help his brother over the years,” an insider told Us at the time. “Harry’s thrown all the good advice he gave him back in his face. When Harry was feeling low or had problems, William was always there for him, as was Kate. Kate’s incredibly hurt too. She acted as a mentor to Harry before Meghan came into the picture and hates seeing her husband so upset.” Scroll through to revisit the most shocking royal feuds in history:

Credit: Tim Graham/Getty Images

Most Shocking Royal Family Feuds in History

They may be royals, but life is not always a fairy tale for the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth II has had to deal with a lot of drama over the years. Back in the ‘80s, the marriage of her son King Charles and Lady Diana Spencer rocked England after it was revealed the prince still had feelings for his ex Camilla Parker-Bowles. Fast-forward to 2018 — when Meghan Markle joined the family after she married Prince Harry — and multiple new family feuds were born. (Here’s looking at you, Thomas and Samantha Markle!) Not long after Meghan and Harry announced their engagement in 2017, it became clear that the Suits alum didn’t have a close relationship with half-sister Samantha. “Hopefully we can have a heart to heart,” Samantha told Us Weekly at the time. “I want her to know I’m wishing her well and there for her. At the end of the day, I want her to know that the love is there.” Leading up to the royal wedding, however, things between Meghan and her dad’s side of the family got worse. In addition to Thomas getting caught staging photos with the paparazzi, Samantha announced plans to write a book titled The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister. Part 1 of the book was released in February 2021. [jwplayer rUWo7apj-l3ahXupL] “Contrary to troll gossip and aggregate news rumors, my book has never been designed to attack my sister,” Samantha told Us at the time. “It’s relatable. There’s a lot to learn — the good, the bad and the ugly. I’ve been very forthcoming that I was never writing a hardbound tabloid. I said that two years ago, but nobody wanted to believe it.” In the book, Samantha revealed that the last time the sisters had spoken was in December 2015. Their relationship had already been strained for two years, according to the Florida native. "It seemed as though she was excited to hear from me," Samantha wrote, citing the frequent missed communication of their "completely different schedules" at the time. She went on to allege that Meghan “changed” after she met Harry. The former actress isn’t the only one who has sibling drama, however. Harry and Prince William’s relationship has been strained in recent years too. The brothers’ rift deepened in January 2020 when Harry and Meghan announced plans to step back from their senior royal duties and relocate to the United States. “William’s done everything in his power to help his brother over the years,” an insider told Us at the time. “Harry’s thrown all the good advice he gave him back in his face. When Harry was feeling low or had problems, William was always there for him, as was Kate. Kate’s incredibly hurt too. She acted as a mentor to Harry before Meghan came into the picture and hates seeing her husband so upset.” Scroll through to revisit the most shocking royal feuds in history:

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Princess Diana and Queen Camilla

During Diana’s marriage to Charles, the prince began an affair with his former love Camilla. After the late princess learned about Charles’ relationship with Camilla, Diana asked to have a moment alone with her and approached her about the affair. “I’d just like you to know that I know exactly what is going on,” Diana told Camilla, according to archived recordings from National Geographic. “I do know what is going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot.”

Credit: Tim Graham/Getty Images

Princess Diana and King Charles

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Diana and Charles struggled to get along after he cheated on her. Royal correspondent Robert Jobson also claimed in his 2018 book, Charles at 70: Thoughts, Hopes and Dreams, that Charles “desperately wanted to get out of the wedding in 1981.” 

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Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Camilla

Author Tom Bower claimed in his 2018 biography about Charles, REBEL Prince: The Power, Passion and Defiance of Prince Charles, that the queen called Camilla a “wicked women” after drinking a few martinis. “But on that evening she’d had several martinis, and to Charles’s surprise she replied forcefully: she would not condone his adultery, nor forgive Camilla for not leaving Charles alone to allow his marriage to recover,” Bower wrote.

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Princess Kate and Meghan Markle

Reports first surfaced in November 2018 that sisters-in-law Kate and Meghan were not getting along. Speculation increased after the former actress and Harry decided to move from London to Windsor, which is further away from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s home in Kensington Palace. One source told Us at the time that Kate felt like “Meghan had used her to climb the royal ladder.”

Another insider told Us in January 2019, however, that the two women made up over Christmas at the queen’s request. “[The queen] reached her limit with all the drama,” the insider said. “She desperately wanted Meghan and Kate to make up and she got her wish!” Plus, the source added, “Being under the same roof meant that they couldn’t avoid each other.”

While the two women made up over Christmas in 2018, a source told Us in September 2019 that they will “never be best friends” because they are “from two totally different worlds.”

Their relationship was strained again when Harry and Meghan announced their plans to step back from the royal family in January 2020. “Kate and Meghan have not spoken since [the royal exit] happened,” an insider told Us at the time. 

Meghan addressed speculation about her relationship with Kate for the first time during her CBS tell-all interview in March 2021, citing the two women arguing over Princess Charlotte’s dress for the May 2018 nuptials as a “turning point” for Meghan’s relationship with the family.

“The narrative with Kate, it didn’t happen,” Meghan said. “A few days before the wedding she was upset about flower girl dresses and it made me cry. It really hurt my feelings. … What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do but that happened to me. Everyone in the institution knew it wasn’t true. … I’m not sharing that piece about Kate in any way to be disparaging to her. I think it’s really important for people to understand the truth.”

The former actress also noted that it’s not fair for the royal family to compare Kate and Meghan’s struggles with the British press.

“If members of his family say, ‘Well, this is what happened to all of us’ or if they can compare what the experience that I went through was similar to what has been shared with us — Kate was called ‘Waity Katie’ waiting to marry William. While I imagine that was really hard, and I do, I can’t picture what that felt like. This is not the same,” Meghan said. “And if a member of this family will comfortably say, ‘We’ve all had to deal with things that are rude.’ Rude and racist are not the same. And equally, you’ve also had a press team that goes on the record to defend you, especially when they know some things are not true. And that didn’t happen for us.”

Credit: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

Charles Spencer and the Royal Family

Following Diana’s death in 1997, her brother Charles Spencer came to her defense on multiple occasions. In July 2017, he spoke out about William and Harry being forced to walk behind their mother’s funeral cortége. "I was lied to and told that they wanted to do it, which of course they didn't," he told BBC, calling the act “bizarre and cruel” and “the most horrifying half an hour of my life.” 

"It was the worst part of the day by a considerable margin, walking behind my sister's body with two boys who were obviously massively grieving their mother," Spencer explained. "It was a sort of bizarre circumstance where we were told you just have to look straight ahead."

Harry echoed his uncle’s thoughts during an interview with Newsweek magazine in 2017: "My mother had just died and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television. I don't think any child should be asked to do that under any circumstances. I don't think it would happen today."

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Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate

Author Christopher Anderson claimed in his 2016 book, Game of Crowns, that Camilla was “disgusted with William and Kate sucking up all the attention" while she was trying to win over the public after she married Charles in 2005. The author also alleged that Camilla tried to convince her stepson to break up with Kate in 2007, four years before their 2011 nuptials. While Kate and William did briefly split, they were back together within a matter of months. 

Credit: News Licensing / MEGA

Thomas Markle and the Royal Family

Meghan’s father first made headlines ahead of her May 2018 wedding to Harry when he was caught staging photos of himself with the paparazzi. (He later decided not to attend the nuptials or walk his daughter down the aisle amid the scandal and alleged health issues.) In the following months, Thomas trashed the British royal family to the press, alleging his daughter looked miserable and called her British in-laws “cult-like.” 

A source told Us in December 2018 that the Suits alum has “moved on” for her dad and “completely cut” him off. “It keeps getting worse and worse, he won’t stop. It’s shocking,” the source said. “There is no relationship change. Any other interviews are just an eye roll.”

In October 2019, Meghan filed a lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday for publishing a private letter she’d written to her father amid their troubles. Meghan’s lawyers claimed that the “letter was written at a time of great personal anguish and distress” and included “her intimate thoughts and feelings about her father’s health and her relationship with him at that time.”

Meghan noted in March 2021 that her parents were given a “very clear directive” to say “no comment” when it came to her romance with Harry. She also confirmed she has been estranged from Thomas since the paparazzi incident because he lied to her about his role.

“Me saying just full stop, ‘If we use this to protect you, we won’t be able to protect our own children one day, well, I’m talking about your grandchildren,” Meghan said on CBS at the time. “I look at Archie, I think about this child and … I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything to intentionally cause pain to my child. I can’t imagine it. So it’s hard for me to reconcile that.”

Credit: Kevin Manning/MEGA

Samantha Markle and the Royal Family

Meghan’s estranged half-sister has been outspoken about her disdain for the royal family ever since news of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s engagement broke in November 2017. She has also referred to Meghan as “Cruella de Vil” and claimed she is writing two books about her younger sibling. 

In July 2018, Samantha admitted she was using the royal family to make money.  “Let’s face it, we all have to survive. Money makes the world go round, so if you want to call that cashing in, that’s fine,” she said on Good Morning Britain at the time. “I think no one in media would refuse a paycheck for talking about the royals and as a family, we’re not subject to royal protocol, certainly here in America."

While Thomas told Us that he was “pleased” by Samantha’s book, The Diary of Princess Pushy’s Sister Part 1, Meghan never publicly commented on the memoir until her March 2021 tell-all with CBS.

“I think it would be very hard to ‘tell all’ when you don’t know me,” the duchess said in a bonus clip from the special. “This is a very different situation than my dad, right? When you talk about betrayal, betrayal comes from someone that you have a relationship with, right? I don’t feel comfortable talking about people that I really don’t know. I grew up as an only child, which everyone who grew up around me knows, and I wished I had siblings. I would have loved to have had siblings. That’s why I’m so excited to be pregnant [again] so that [my son] Archie has someone.”

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Prince William and Prince Harry

After speculation died down that Kate and Meghan did not get along, new reports surfaced that the brothers were actually the ones at odds. In March 2019, longtime royal filmmaker Nick Bullen claimed that William and Harry had a "rift" between them. “All brothers fall out. All families fall out. Their fallout at the moment is becoming public,” Bullen said at the time. “I think people don’t want to think about that with these two boys. These are two boys who lost their mother [Princess Diana] at a really early age, and the fairytale is that they are closer than ever and need each other, and I think that’s probably true. But equally they are two grown men in their 30s, starting their own families, different wives. They are moving to different parts of the country, different duties.”

Feud speculation was fueled after Harry arrived for Easter services in April 2019 separately from William and Kate. While the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did not interact with Harry outside of St George’s Chapel, a video of the royal family members happily chatting inside the church later surfaced. (Meghan, who was nine months pregnant at the time, did not attend the holiday services.)

Harry confirmed their rift in the ITV documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey, which aired in October 2019. "Inevitably stuff happens,” he said. “But look, we’re brothers, we’ll always be brothers. We’re certainly on different paths at the moment but I’ll always be there for him and as I know he’ll always be there for me.”

The brothers’ relationship made headlines again in January 2020 after Harry and Meghan announced their plans to step back from their senior royal duties. According to an insider, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were “blindsided” by the announcement.

“William is incredibly hurt, but at the same time he has his own family to focus on and is trying to move forward with his life,” the source said.

Another insider revealed that William feels “let down” by Harry’s “‘reckless’” and “selfish’” actions.

One year after Harry and Meghan’s royal exit, a source told Us that things between the brothers were on the mend. However, after news broke that the couple made their decision to leave the U.K. permanently — and Harry and Meghan were set to do a sit-down interview on CBS — an insider told Us that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge weren’t happy.

During the aforementioned CBS sit-down, Harry gave an update on his relationship with William. “I love William to bits. We’ve been through hell together and we have a shared experience, but we are on different paths,” he said in March 2021. “The relationship is space at the moment, and time heals all things, hopefully.”

In June 2022, however, a source told Us exclusively that the brothers' relationship is "irreparable," and the duo have "not been in a good place" for years. "[William] doesn’t know who [Harry] is anymore and the trust between them is strained," the insider added at the time, especially after the royal family had been “burned so many times” by Harry's negative comments. “They’ll never recover from the damage that has been done.”