Queen Camilla's Surprising Role in Harry's Emotional Reunion with King Charles
Queen Camilla was pivotal to Prince Harry and King Charles’ long-awaited reunion.
“She is a non-negotiable part of Charles’ life,” royal author Catherine Mayer told People in the outlet’s new cover story, published Wednesday.
“There is no reconciliation with him without her.”
Harry — along with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two kids: Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5 — met with Charles, 77, and Camilla, 78, at Highgrove House on July 10.
Charles, who is currently battling cancer, hadn’t seen his grandkids in four years. Details of the meeting have not been publicly disclosed.
“It is better that people don’t know anything about these meetings,” a source close to the royal family told People. “They should be allowed to rekindle those family ties.”
Harry has had a complicated relationship with Camilla, who allegedly had an affair with Charles during his marriage to Harry’s mother, Princess Diana.
In a 2023 “60 Minutes” interview to promote his memoir “Spare,” the Duke of Sussex described Camilla as the “villain” in his parents’ relationship.
“She needed to rehabilitate her image,” Harry said of his stepmother, who married Charles in 2005, nine years after the monarch and Diana divorced.
Harry alleged that Camilla was leaking stories to the press for her own benefit.
“There was open willingness on both sides to trade of information,” he claimed. “And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that.”
In his memoir, Harry said both he and brother Prince William urged their father not to marry the now-queen consort.
“We didn’t think it was necessary,” Harry shared. “We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person, that — surely that’s enough. Why go that far when you don’t necessarily need to?”
Harry explained that the siblings — who are now estranged — conceded to the wedding because they wanted their dad “to be happy and saw how happy he was with her.”
As Page Six confirmed, Harry’s wife and children joined him in the UK to meet with his father and stepmother.
However, the trip “turned into a nightmare,” according to a royals expert, after the Sussexes were denied taxpayer-funded security and Buckingham Palace withdrew the offer to let the couple stay at the royal residence.
We confirmed that Markle, 44, wouldn’t attend an Invictus Games event with Harry, who spent most of the trip without his family, aside from their meeting with Charles and Camilla.
William, meanwhile, did not meet with his younger brother, though royal expert Kinsey Schofield exclusively told us the future king “understands” why Charles reunited with Harry.
Schofield also said William believes Harry “has not earned his way back into the family’s confidence.”
