King Charles Called Prince Harry ‘That Fool’
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix show “took the wind out of everyone’s sails” and left King Charles III describing his second son as “that fool,” according to biographer Omid Scobie’s new book.
The author wrote bombshell book Finding Freedom, released in 2020, which marked the first major reveal of Harry and Meghan’s perspective on their royal exit, complete with allegations that Prince William was a “snob.”
Harry and Meghan had always denied having anything to do with it until the duchess was forced to admit during a Court of Appeal hearing in a lawsuit against The Mail on Sunday that she authorized an aide to give information to Scobie and co-author Carolyn Durand.
Prince Harry at a London High Court hearing on June 6, 2023, and King Charles III under an umbrella in Didcot, Oxfordshire, on November 14, 2023. The king described Harry as “that fool,” according to… Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
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Scobie’s second, solo project Endgame comes out on Tuesday and described the reaction at the palace after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s six-hour docuseries Harry & Meghan dropped in two parts on Netflix in December 2022, three months after Queen Elizabeth II died and Charles became king.
According to a leaked extract published in The Sun, Scobie wrote: “At the palace, heads were in hands and migraines were brewing. ‘[The show] took the wind out of everyone’s sails,’ said one aide.”
“(He) went from not wanting anyone to talk about his son to openly criticizing ‘that fool,’ ” the book says.
Other leaked extracts suggested there were two people who discussed the skin color of Meghan Markle’s unborn child named in letters sent between the duchess and the king in March 2021 after the Oprah Winfrey interview.
A letter from Charles, according to the book, expressed “no ill will” or “casual prejudice” had been involved and following the correspondence there were no “hard feelings” over the “specific incident.”
Meanwhile, the exchange meant “both had been heard,” though there was still much that was unresolved.
Meghan told Oprah Winfrey in March 2021: “So we have in tandem the conversation of ‘He won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
More than 18 months later in January 2023, Harry moved to clarify that the couple meant to accuse the royals of “unconscious bias” and had not meant to trigger the resulting hunt for the identity of the “royal racist,” which he blamed on the media.
Prince William and Kate Middleton are also said to have thought a South Park episode that ridiculed Harry and Meghan was “hilarious.”
The “Worldwide Privacy Tour” episode showed the “Prince and Princess of Canada,” who looked like Harry and Meghan, touring TV studios to campaign for privacy.
Endgame will be published by Dey Street, an imprint of HarperCollins, on Tuesday.
