'William Threw Harry & Meghan Out!'

After a bitter row, the prince got his revenge

When trying to define the moment that marked the decisive rift with his brother, William – the break-up and actual separation of the joint household they had established together in 2009 – Harry would fix upon his triumphant return with Meghan from their Australian tour at the end of October 2018.

But if asked the same question, William would have fixed on a more specific event: the explosive argument he had had with his brother earlier that month.

We now know that Princes William and Harry were no longer on speaking terms before the Sussexes set off for Australia.

The brothers had parted on extremely poor terms, with the trouble centring on Meghan’s stringent treatment and alleged bullying of her staff.

Prince William went ballistic when he heard the “dossier of distress” that their PR man Jason Knauf had gathered.

For William, Knauf ’s allegations also clarified something that the prince had long believed – that Meghan was fundamentally hostile towards the royal system, which she failed to understand as an outsider. William wondered if she had not wanted to leave from the very start – even dreaming, perhaps, that she could whisk Harry back with her to North America.

But in a statement issued to The Times early in March 2021, Meghan’s lawyers and PR representatives denied all allegations of bullying as inaccurate and the product of what they described as a “smear campaign”.