New York Post, Sunday, October 25, 2020nypost.comP
RINCE Harry and Prince
William were once the clos-
est of friends, there for each
other through thick and thin,
charmingly choosing to rent a cot-
tage together while training to be-
come helicopter pilots in 2009.
“I do a fair bit of tidying up
after him. He snores a lot, too. He
keeps me up all night long,” Will-
iam affectionately joshed about
his younger sibling in a TV inter-
view at the time.
Just over a decade later, jokes are
thin on the ground.
With William in London and
Harry in Montecito, Calif., there
are 5,500 miles between them.
They’re also in incredibly different
head spaces.
“The rift gets more serious
with every passing day,” British
historian Robert Lacey told The
Post of the feud that caught fire
after Harry and wife Meghan
Markle quit the House of Wind-
sor in March.
Lacey’s new book, “Battle of
Brothers: William and Harry:
The Inside Story of a Family in
Tumult” (Harper), chronicles the
ups and downs of the siblings’
relationship, which the author
says is currently at an all-time low.
“The chickens have come home
to roost,” said the author, who is
also the historical consultant to
“The Crown” on Netflix. “We
thought the disorder, chaos andtragedy of the ’80s and ’90s involv-
ing their parents were over. Now
[it’s all] come back to life in the
shape of these two boys. They are
the legacy of all that heartache.”
He is referring to the 1981 “fairy-
tale” wedding of Prince Charles
and Lady Diana Spencer, followed
by Charles’ infidelity with Camilla
Parker Bowles, their bitter divorce
in 1996 and Diana’s tragic death in
a car crash one year later.
Lacey explained how the sons
have drawn op-
posing conclu-
sions from what
went wrong.
“They both talk
about the impor-
tance of mental
health and ac-
knowledge they
are psychologi-
cally fragile. But
they coped with
it in different
ways,” he said.
William, now
38, received ad-
vice about com-
mitment to his
country from his
grandmother,
Queen Elizabeth
II — drawing
strength from the
idea he would one day be king.
As a result, Lacey said, “When he
meets Kate Middleton at univer-
sity, he actually makes the poor
young woman wait nine years to
effectively audition her for the job
as wife to the head of state. He
took the lesson of duty.”
By contrast, Harry, 36, took the“opposite” lesson: that he was the
victim of “the arranged marriage”
between virginal Diana and the
worldlier Charles that “swiftly be-
came loveless.”
“His attitude was: ‘Well, I’m not
going to make the same mistake as
my parents,’ ” said Lacey. “ ‘I’m
marrying for love.’ And he’s been
so happy and proud to proclaim he
loved Meghan virtually from the
moment he
met her in- That im-
pulse has
guided him.”
Lacey thinks
it’s a “tragedy”
that Markle is
no longer part
of the clan.
“We wel-
comed a mixed-
race member into
the family but, 30
months later, she’s
not royal any
more. I think they
missed an incredi-
ble opportunity
there.”
Lacey blames the
stuffy occupants of
Buckingham Pal-
ace for balking at
Meghan and
Harry’s popular status as “rock-
star royals” who overshadowed
William and Kate.
“Everyone thought Harry was
going to marry a nice girl called
Henrietta or Annabel and go live
in the countryside,” added Lacey.
“Instead, he finds Meghan, full of
American piss and vinegar, energy
and independence of thought. If
you bring into the old-fashioned,
creaking structure of the House of
Windsor someone who is a cru-
sader, dedicated to women’s rights
and social change, she isn’t going
to give up those qualities.
“When she came over to Britain,
she thought it was a new platform.
Whereas the royal family didn’t
see themselves as offering her a
platform at all.”
Harry, meanwhile, was appalled
that William, together with
Charles and, by extension, the
queen, appeared to be unwilling to
open their minds to even the pos-
sibility of Meghan becoming more
of an activist.
The final straw, according to
Lacey in “Battle of Brothers,”
came when the queen delivered
her 2019 Christmas broadcast
with no portrait of Meghan,
Harry or their son Archie in view.
“Who does or does not feature
on the royal Christmas desk has al-
ways been like the changing pano-
rama of faces on the historic bal-
cony of Moscow’s Kremlin,” Lacey
writes. “It showed who was in fa-
vor and who was not — and, at
Windsor in December 2019, this
even extended to babies.”
In March 2021, the family will
“review” Megxit — with the queen
likely hoping to bring Harry and
Meghan home.
But Lacey predicts the summit
will result in an even wider separa-
tion.
“It’s looking less and less likely
for a reconciliation,” he said. “I
don’t see a way back in for Harry,
not into the working royal family.”Bros’ split was
fated after royal
mishandling of
Diana’s death
THRONE FOR A LOOP: The new book
“Battle of Brothers,” by Robert Lacey, examines
how once-close princes Harry (near right) and
William have, seemingly irreparably, fallen apart.Gettyy Images; APROYAL PAIN: Lacey
writes that Harry (front) and
William are the legacy of
mom Diana’s heartache.loved Meghan virtually from the
moment he
met her in- That im-
pulse has
guided him.”
it’s a “tragedy”
that Markle is
no longer part
of the clan.JANE
RIDLEY
President Trump is no fan
of Sacha Baron Cohen or
his “Borat” character.
“Years ago, you know, he
tried to scam me. And I was
the only one who said no
way. That’s a phony guy.
And I don’t find him funny,”
Trump told reporters
aboard Air Force One Fri-
day, The Sun reported. “To
me, he was a creep.”
The incident with Cohen
happened roughly 15 years
ago, said Trump, without
going into additional de-
tails.
The notorious British co-
median has been in the
headlines for tricking
Trump lawyer and pal Rudy
Giuliani into an embarrass-
ing cameo in Cohen’s new
film, “Borat Subsequent
Moviefilm.”
“I admit, I don’t find you
funny either,” Cohen
tweeted in response. “But
yet the whole world laughs
at you.”
Cohen did score a brief
interview with Trump in
2003 while dressed as his
character Ali G.
The faux-British rapper
pitched a visibly annoyed
Trump on the possibility of
investing in gloves to pro-
tect one’s hands while eat-
ing ice cream.
“I hope you make a lot of
money,” Trump told him
dismissively before leaving.
Jon Levine
Trump
bops
Borat
Pacific Gas & Electric
may cut power to more than
1 million people on Sunday
to prevent the chance of
sparking wildfires as ex-
treme fire weather returns
to the region, the utility an-
nounced Friday.
The nation’s largest utility
said it could black out cus-
tomers in 38 counties — in-
cluding most of the San Fran-
cisco Bay Area — as weather
forecasts called for a return
to bone-dry, gusty weather
that carries the threat of
downing or fouling power
lines or other equipment that
in recent years have been
blamed for igniting massive
and deadly blazes in central
and Northern California.AP
Calif. ‘fiery’
power cuts