A resurfaced excerpt from Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, has revealed the explicit two-word response he received from his brother, Prince William, after sharing news of his romance with Hollywood actress Meghan Markle in 2016.
The Duke of Sussex’s love story with the Suits actress began after the pair met on a blind date in London, which was arranged by a mutual friend.
They kept a low profile for six months until the relationship was made public by the press, prompting Kensington Palace to release an official statement confirming the romance.
Three months into their courtship, Prince Harry sat down for dinner with Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton to share news of his budding relationship with the Hollywood actress, according to Hello!
In Spare, Prince Harry revealed the unusually explicit response he received from his brother: “F**k off”.
Harry wrote that he “casually mentioned that there was … a new woman in my life”, to which William responded that he “knew something was going on”.
Harry wrote that he “casually mentioned that there was … a new woman in my life”, to which William responded that he “knew something was going on”. Picture: Isabel Infantes – Pool/Getty Images
“‘Who is she?” William and Kate eagerly asked, to which Harry replied: “She’s an actress.”
“Oh?” they both responded.
When Harry revealed his new girlfriend was on a show called Suits, “their mouths fell open”, he wrote.
“They turned to each other. Then Willy turned to me and said: ‘F**k off?'”
Harry then revealed that both William and Kate were avid viewers of the legal drama.
“I was baffled until Willy and Kate explained that they were regular — nay, religious — viewers of Suits,” he continued.
He added that he had been worried about Meghan not being welcomed into the family, but now had to be concerned about his brother being starstruck around his new love interest.
“‘Great,’ I thought, laughing,” Harry wrote, adding: “I’ve been worrying about the wrong thing.
“All this time, I’d thought Willy and Kate might not welcome Meg into the family.
“But now I had to worry about them hounding her for an autograph.”
Reports have since revealed that this is the closest the Duchess of Sussex has been to being in Prince William’s good graces, with the pair failing to hit it off on their first introduction.
In Spare, Harry claimed the Prince of Wales physically “recoiled” when Meghan attempted to hug him during their first meeting.
“[It] completely freaked him out,” Harry wrote, according to US Weekly.
“He recoiled. Willy didn’t hug many strangers. Whereas Meg hugged most strangers.”
“Will had hoped that she would greet him with standard reverence per the protocol,” he penned.
“When meeting my grandmother [the late Queen Elizabeth II], I’d made it clear [curtsying was needed]—this is the queen, but when meeting my brother, it was just Willy, who loved Suits.”
US Weekly also reported that William encouraged his younger brother not to rush into marriage and warned him of the challenges that could come with dating an American actress.
“It’s too fast, he’d told me. Too soon,” William allegedly told Harry, according to Spare.
“In fact, he’d actually been pretty discouraging about my even dating Meg.
“One day, sitting together in his garden, he’d predicted a host of difficulties I could expect if I hooked up with an ‘American actress,’ a phrase he always managed to make sound like a ‘convicted felon’.”