Prince William "is adamant there was no physical violence" during a heated argument with Prince Harry in which Harry said William threw him into a dog bowl, according to a new royal book.
The first major story to leak from Harry's record-breaking memoir Spare hit the headlines in The Guardian in January 2023 and described a physical altercation between Harry and William during a disagreement about Meghan Markle.
Now though, a source quoted in William and Catherine: The Monarchy's New Era says the story was "a cheap shot" and did not reflect the reality of the dispute, in which "cross words [were] exchanged."
The book by Russell Myers is out in America next month but is being serialized in The Mirror, the British tabloid newspaper of which Myers is royal editor.
Harry and Meghan leveled potentially damaging allegations at the Monarchy during their Oprah Winfrey interview in March 2021 before a statement by Buckingham Palace on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II said "some recollections may vary."
Ever since, there has been a tension over whether Harry and Meghan's account was reliable, though the counter argument from the royal side has largely come out in anonymous source quotes in royal books and newspaper articles, much to Harry's frustration.
Myers quotes a source who said: "It was a cheap shot [from Harry] to present such an argument. Tensions were running very high, and yes, there certainly were cross words exchanged that on reflection were regrettable, but the prince [William] is adamant there was no physical violence."
Harry described the argument between them in Spare, saying William came over to his Kensington Palace home, Nottingham Cottage, to talk about the "whole royal catastrophe."
William had said Meghan’s treatment of staff was “rude” and “abrasive” while Harry, according to Spare, accused William of repeating the media’s narrative about Meghan.
A source quoted in William and Catherine said: “It wasn’t peddling a tabloid narrative to stick up for staff that were deeply unhappy to the point of walking away or having their mental health being affected.”
William is quoted in the book saying “Meg’s difficult… She’s rude. She’s abrasive. She’s alienated half the staff.”
“Not the first time,” Harry wrote, “he’d parroted the press narrative. Duchess Difficult, all that bullshit. Rumors, lies from his team, tabloid rubbish, and I told him so -- again.”
A headline in The Sunday Times had nicknamed Meghan “Duchess Difficult” in December 2018, some months earlier.
“Willy, I can’t speak to you when you’re like this,” Harry quoted himself as saying. “He set down the water,” Spare read, “called me another name, then came at me.
“It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dogs’ bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out.
“Come on, hit me! You’ll feel better if you hit me! Do what? Come on, we always used to fight. You’ll feel better if you hit me. No, only you’ll feel better if I hit you. Please…just leave.”
When Spare came out in January 2023, Harry did a sit down interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes in which he took a swipe at his family for speaking out via anonymous source quotes in royal books.
“Every single time I’ve tried to do it privately,” Harry said, “there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife. You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But it’s just a motto. And it doesn’t really hold.”
Harry described “endless” complaining “through leaks” and added: “So now, trying to speak a language that perhaps they understand, I will sit here and speak truth to you with the words that come out of my mouth rather than using someone else, an unnamed source, to feed in lies or a narrative to a tabloid media that literally radicalizes its readers to then potentially cause harm to my family, my wife, my kids.”
Needless to say, Harry and Meghan did also authorize former Kensington Palace press secretary Jason Knauf to brief Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand for their book Finding Freedom.
William and Catherine: The Monarchy's New Era by Russell Myers is due to be published in the U.S. by Pegasus Books, on March 10, 2026.