Prince William’s “friends” love to gossip with the Daily Beast’s Royalist column. Over the past year especially, Royalist has run a number of exclusives sourced from “a close friend of William,” and all of those exclusives have been about how much William hates the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and how the brothers never speak. There’s always a curious subtext too, which is that William is paying obsessive attention to what the Sussexes are doing and William always, unfailingly, has opinions on what they’re doing. William claims to despise his brother – perhaps, for William’s own mental health, he should simply ignore Harry’s comings and goings instead of stalking him? But what do I know. Anyhoodle, William thinks Harry’s brief coronation visit is a “massive diss” to their father.

The brevity of Prince Harry’s forthcoming trip to the U.K. to attend his father’s coronation is a “massive diss” to his family, a close friend of Prince William’s has told The Daily Beast. And with rumors now circulating that Harry could fly in and out of the country in such short order that he spends less than 24 hours in the land of his birth, opinion is divided as to whether the effect of his appearance will be to bolster a sense of unity or reinforce the narrative of division that has beset the royals in recent years.

“If he comes for less than 24 hours, it’s a massive diss really,” said the longtime close friend of William’s. “You know, ‘Tell us how you really feel, Harry.’”

The friend said that relations between the two brothers were “so bad they are nonexistent” but that William would likely be happy for his father that Harry was attending the coronation.

“William’s official position is that he supports his father because he is the king and it’s his coronation,” the friend said.

While Charles is said to be relieved by the issue finally being settled, there seems to be an increasingly clear divide between William’s ongoing hostility to his brother and Charles’ apparent willingness to continue to try to build bridges. A friend of the king, for example, gave The Daily Beast a very different perspective on Harry’s non-attendance to that given by William’s friend, saying: “Of course Charles is delighted Harry will be there. He has always made it very clear he loves both his sons and wanted Harry to be there. He completely understands it is going to be a quick trip.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Again, William needs to get a f–king grip and so do his friends. Harry’s appearance at the coronation was clearly negotiated between father and son, and really, it’s just an issue between the two of them. Harry is coming for his father on Charles’s big hat day, the end. What William and his friends don’t want to admit is that Charles managed to get the exact situation he wanted: Harry putting in an appearance at the coronation and no Meghan and no Archie or Lili. That was the whole reason for the palace leaks for months and months, to get this exact result. So no, it’s not a diss. But it’s not a capitulation either – Harry and Charles spoke and that’s something (for Harry, who still dearly loves his father). All this tells me is that William is mad as a hornet that Charles and Harry still care about each other enough to negotiate this together.

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Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.