Prince William's 'Envy': Future King Used to Resent Prince Harry When California Duke Was 'the More Popular' Brother

Princes William and Harry were considered close for most of their lives until the arrival of Meghan Markle in 2016, according to Diana, Princess of Wales' former bodyguard, Ken Wharfe.

"I think this breakup of sibling relationship, I think this all began around the time of Harry’s marriage to Meghan, much later in life," he dished on The Sun's Royal Exclusive Show.

"Until that point, certainly up until the point of their mother’s death, they were very much at one," he added. "They entertained each other, they were very much involved with each other's friends. Right through that early part of life, Harry was always the most popular."

As The Royal Observer previously reported, the rift that has developed between the once close royal siblings has been there for a few years now but went "nuclear" once Harry attacked William in his memoir, Spare.

In the autobiography, the Duke of Sussex accused the then-Duke of Cambridge of throwing him to the floor during a 2019 argument that revolved around Meghan Markle. He also spilled how it was William and Kate Middleton who convinced him to wear a Nazi uniform to a party in 2005 — both allegedly laughed at the then 20-year-old prince once the image of him donning the outfit was splashed across newspaper front pages.

But before the brothers arrived at the dysfunctional precipice they now exist within, Diana's bodyguard from 1986-1993 highlighted just how well they used to get on.

"It was a very happy union," Wharfe observed about Harry and William's upbringing. "It was a very happy family. What I will say is Diana and her husband [the then-Prince Charles] at that time were going through a very difficult period in their life. But both of them didn’t want their situation to be known by the children."

He continued: "They had a blissful happy life at that point. Harry was always the joker, the entertainer. I suppose it would be quite common for the sort of sibling rivalry that was, for the eldest William to be slightly nervous or envious of Harry because he was so popular."

Wharfe observed: "But he was the entertainer, you could almost say he was the court jester at that time. So in that sense, I think William found it slightly different, but they were funny. What I liked about Diana, what I liked about the Prince himself, is the way they educated their children. Albeit in rather extremely privileged circumstances, they had a very good upbringing in that sense."

The former bodyguard concluded by stating that "Diana was very careful and insisted they had a normal life."