Not Even a Father/Son Phone Call: Prince Harry Heard About King Charles' Planned Prostate Surgery Through the Media

In a déjà vu moment, Prince Harry reportedly learned about King Charles III's upcoming surgery through the media. This comes after the California Duke shared how he only learned of his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II's passing from a breaking news report en route to Balmoral Castle in September 2022.

The monarch will undergo a "routine procedure" next week to correct an enlarged prostate, which coincides with the "more concerning" medical condition of Kate, Princess of Wales. The future queen had a "serious" operation on Tuesday, January 16, of an unknown ailment, which requires an unusually long two-week stay in hospital and a nearly three-month recuperation at home.

Neither the palace nor spokespeople for Harry and Meghan Markle have commented on the concerning turn of events, but this could be intentional for both parties. "Each side is keen not to stir up further tensions, aware that any kind of declaration could plunge relations to a new low," a source told an outlet.

This also follows conflicting accounts first shared by the Duke of Sussex in his memoir, Spare, in which he recalled that he only learned of his grandmother's death through the news. The fifth in line to the British throne claims his family, specifically Prince William, ignored his calls while he tried to get to the castle to visit Elizabeth II.

"When the plane started to descend, I saw that my phone lit up. It was a message from Meg: 'Call me when you get this,'" Harry wrote in the tome. "I looked at the BBC website. My grandmother had died. My father was King."

But it is now revealed by palace aides that the reverse is true, and Harry was the one ignoring everyone's calls.

A member of the Palace staff says that the King had been urgently trying to make contact with his younger son. "There were repeated attempts to get through to him, but no calls were going through because Harry was airborne,' says the official," a source told author Robert Hardman, who shared the information in his new book, Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story.

Reportedly, the new monarch began trying to contact Harry just as soon as he handled affairs related to his accession to the throne and contacted family members not far from Balmoral. The Duke of Sussex had to take his own chartered flight to the Northern Scotland estate after he was unable to get through to his brother, Prince William, earlier that morning.

Harry ended up arriving at Balmoral nearly five hours after Elizabeth II passed away, and all of his family and their spouses made it to the castle.

The King is expected to make a full recovery next week from what is being billed as a "minimally invasive" and "common" procedure.

The Daily Beast reported on the insider revelations.