Christopher Andersen’s Brothers and Wives: Inside the Private Lives of William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan comes out this week in hardcover. Something I’ve noticed about all of the royal books is that the authors with the most access and respect (Omid Scobie. Robert Lacey) tend to get their books excerpted in the British papers weeks in advance. The fact that Andersen’s book is being leaked strategically (to an American site) just days before its release tells me that he actually doesn’t have that much tea, access or respect. We’ll see, though! You never know how people will react. Page Six has several stories based on Andersen’s book and so much of it is just a repeat of previous gossip, with slight “twists.” Take this story about how Queen Elizabeth didn’t include a photo of Harry & Meghan on her desk for her Christmas speech in 2019.
Queen Elizabeth’s choice to eliminate a photo of grandson Prince Harry, Meghan Markle and baby Archie led to the couple quitting the royal family, according to a new book. Andersen claims that the British monarch had an aide move a portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their eight-month-old son, Archie off camera before she recorded her 2019 holiday broadcast. The book quotes a source explaining that the queen “looked over the tables where the photographs she had so lovingly selected were arranged.
“All were fine but one, [the queen] told the director.” Then she pointed to the Sussex picture and said: “That one, I suppose we don’t need that one.”
A spokesperson for the queen told The Post: “We don’t comment on books of this kind as to do so risks giving it some form of authority or credibility.” A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan did not respond to requests for comment.
The queen’s alleged holiday decision came as Prince Harry had chosen to spend Christmas with his wife, son and mother-in-law, Doria Ragland in Canada rather than the UK. When Harry’s older brother, Prince William. watched the queen’s televised message with other close relatives, he was aghast to see the photo missing from the lineup. According to the insider, the second in line to the throne confided in his wife, Kate, that his brother was likely to be “terribly upset.”
Andersen writes that the slight caused Harry to confide in a pal that he “felt as if he, Meghan and Archie were being erased from the family.”
The Windsors made a few moves like that in December 2019, and Harry saw all of those moves and he knew exactly what they meant. He knew what it meant when the Queen didn’t include him on her desk photos. He knew what it meant when Buckingham Palace organized that photoshoot with Charles, William, George and the Queen too. They were already cutting him out of the family. What they didn’t know was that Harry and Meghan were already making plans to leave their dusty asses too.
Andersen also has another version of the same story about how William and Harry fell out when Harry began dating Meghan. In Andersen’s version, William asked Harry “why rush things” in September 2017 and Harry replied: “Who the hell do you think you are?” Andersen also repeats the story (I think from Robert Lacey) that William asked the Earl Spencer to intervene in Harry’s relationship but the Earl’s attempt made “matters far worse” because Harry was “furious that his brother was actively seeking to have others interfere in his personal affairs.”
Andersen writes that Harry was concerned from the word go that William would hate Meghan on sight because, Anderson says, Willy can be “very stiff.” Apparently, William liked Meghan at first “but soon harbored doubts” because of the situation with Thomas Markle and the Toxic White Markles. Plus: Andersen writes that William and Kate “wanted a proper English rose” for Harry. For the love of God. “We’re going to be racist to your Black American girlfriend because we want you to marry someone white and British!!” And they thought that would work!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
