Sources claim that Prince William’s aides did not press against Harry in the Megxit saga. This was despite a dispute over a BBC documentary.
Royal insiders denied William and Harry had been embroiled in a briefing war, ahead of a programme examining the brothers’ troubled relationship with the media.
William, Prince Charles, and the Queen are reported to have joined hands to protest to the BBC. They threaten to boycott future broadcasts with the BBC if the Palace does not respond to any potentially harmful allegations.
Royal insiders denied William and Harry had been embroiled in a briefing war, ahead of a programme examining the brothers’ troubled relationship with the media
The BBC2 programme, The Princes And The Press, which airs tonight at 9pm, examines coverage of the brothers in British newspapers, including Harry’s relationship with wife Meghan and the couple’s decision to stand down from royal duties and move to the US.
Courtiers have not been shown the two-part documentary, and sources told the Mail on Sunday that they believed it would include claims that William and Harry – or their advisers – briefed against each other.
A senior royal source called the documentary ‘tittle-tattle’ and told the paper that the row over the programme had left the Queen ‘upset’.
Buckingham Palace’s, Kensington Palace’s and Clarence House insiders were reported to be particularly angry that they didn’t get the chance to witness the show or reply to any claims.
Quickly, sources dispelled any suggestion that William or Harry’s royal aides were involved in a briefing war during Megxit.
Sources yesterday claimed that Prince William’s aides did not press against Harry in the Megxit tumult. This was despite a dispute over a BBC documentary.
Prince Charles and Queen Mary walk towards the Balmoral Estate Cricket Pavilion.
Royal Family members, Prince Charles and Prince William in the foreground. Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess are next.
Sources said that the opposite happened and royal aides refused to engage in a public war over words. Despite Oprah Winfrey’s explosive interview with the Duke and Duchess, the duke and duchess of Sussex gave a riveting interview.
One source told the Daily Mail: ‘It was always very clear from the top that no one wanted to be dragged down that particular rabbit hole, however egregiously people were being provoked by the Sussexes.
The palace mantra was that a period of silence would be beneficial to take the toxicity out of the situation, with the Queen going so far as to issue a personal statement making clear that there were matters they needed to deal with privately as a family.’
Last night, royal insiders stated that they did not want to censor the broadcaster nor the program makers. The three royal houses all agree that they ought to have the right of reply.
BBC Guidelines require that all current affairs and news documentaries offer the right to reply when appropriate.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘The programme is about how royal journalism is done and features a range of journalists from broadcast and the newspaper industry.’
Two of her great-grandsons were christened yesterday by the Queen, despite recent health difficulties
Mum’s the word: Princess Eugenie, left, and Zara Tindall arrive at yesterday’s christening
Journalists interviewed for the programme are thought to include BBC royal correspondent Jonny Dymond, the Daily Telegraph’s associate editor Camilla Tominey and US journalist Omid Scobie, who co-authored a biography of Harry and Meghan, Finding Freedom.
The film is presented by Amol Rajan, a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme and a self-declared republican.
The first hour-long episode covers the years following the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and the ‘positive media reaction to the emergence of a new generation of royals’.
This episode looks at the three-year period, and the growing tension between the siblings. In 2019, Harry admitted he and William were ‘on different paths’.
William attacked BBC earlier in the year, after it was exposed for its failures surrounding Martin Bashir Panorama interview.
Harry and he also teamed up to prevent another show’s inclusion of a claim they told courtiers to spread smears on each other.
Claims by Mr Scobie that William and his staff leaked a story about Harry’s mental health were cut from ITV film Harry and William: What Went Wrong? It was broadcast hours earlier than it was, in July, after Kensington Palace denied the claim.
Timing is not only terrible, but incendiary
Richard Kay, Editor at Large
Even for the BBC’s most stout standards, it seems absurd that they would broadcast a documentary in two parts about briefing wars between Royal Family members while still glowing from the Martin Bashir case.
And how counter-productive and foolish of the Corporation to refuse to let the Palace see tonight’s opening instalment, titled the Princes And The Press, before it is screened.
Is it any wonder that courtiers are thinking ‘very carefully’ about future projects with the BBC where cooperation is essential, with next year’s Platinum Jubilee tributes to the Queen at the very top of the list?
Oprah Winfrey interviews Prince Harry and Meghan Markle (Duchess of Sussex).
Although it is unusual for the three royal families, Prince William, Prince Harry, and Queen Mary, to come together in the threat of boycotting our national broadcaster, this shows what is at stake.
This reflects a common sense of collective anger towards the programme.
A veil of secrecy has been drawn around the content of the programme, which has been written and is presented by the ambitious Amol Rajan, a self-declared republican who once labelled the monarchy as ‘absurd’ and the media as a ‘propaganda outlet’ for the Royal Family. So far, so predictable.
While everyone is open to hearing the opinions of their star broadcaster, it may be surprising that the BBC refused them a right to reply.
According to the Palace, it is difficult for anyone not to see or understand what it claims.
Officials are particularly concerned by reports, revealed in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, that the film suggests William and his brother – or advisers working for them – ‘briefed against each other’ to the media in the damaging fall-out surrounding Harry and Meghan’s acrimonious exit from royal life.
Aides insist on this fact alone. They argue that, in fact, there was a refusal to be dragged into a public war of words between the brothers, despite the provocation of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s partial Oprah Winfrey interview and the regular ‘unhelpful’ interventions of the couple’s friends.
When all this is set against the issues of trust exposed by Lord Dyson’s investigation into how Martin Bashir tricked Princess Diana into giving her notorious 1995 Panorama interview, the timing of this latest programme looks not just awful but grotesque.
With all of the emotional baggage from the episode, it is remarkable that the BBC was so insensitive.
The relationship between the Corporation and the monarchy has been fraught over the years, with tensions over Bashir causing it to spiral into toxic territory.
The Diamond Jubilee Buckingham Palace Concert at 2012 was attended by Prince William, Prince Harry, and the Duchess-of-Cambridge.
Prince William was outspoken in his attack on both the deceitful behaviour of the Panorama reporter and the BBC’s shameful cover-up of his activities.
He said his mother ‘was failed not just by a rogue reporter, but by leaders at the BBC who looked the other way rather than asking the tough questions’.
Bashir’s case has many repercussions.
The broadcaster has paid around £750,000 to former graphic designer Matt Wiessler – made a scapegoat in the scandal after he raised concerns with his bosses at the BBC that fake bank statements Bashir had asked him to mock up had been used to secure the Diana interview – and other claims for compensation are in the pipeline.
You can see how the BBC managed to understand that such an incendiary broadcast would not trigger any forceful reactions from Buckingham Palace, the Royal Households and other royal families.
As the Mail on Sunday reported, royal sources have condemned the documentary as ‘tittle-tattle’.
And last night there was growing nervousness at the BBC despite its claim that the film will provide ‘context’ for William and Harry’s relationship with the media.
‘There has been anxiety within the hierarchy about the film for some time and it is the reason why, when it comes to what it contains, they have been playing things so very close to their chest,’ says a Corporation figure.
The programme’s content has been kept secret by keeping it under wraps. It was written and presented by Amol Rajan (pictured).
‘At the same time you do wonder if they have thought things through as to how it is likely to be received.’
One is the so-called briefing conflict. It is not my understanding that any suggestion that the brothers allowed aides in order to poison each other’s feelings will be vigorously rejected.
Previous claims that suggested William and his staff had leaked a story about Harry’s mental welfare, for example, were cut from a prime time ITV documentary hours before it was due to be broadcast in July.
Rajan started work on his project before the Covid-19 pandemic. He had interviewed journalists regularly reporting on the Royal Family.
Questions they were asked included whether they become ‘too close’ to the royals, whether the relationship between the Press and the royals is ‘sycophantic’ and how stories about the Royal Family are presented or ‘spun’.
Whatever tonight’s programme and next week’s second part contain, one thing is certain: the Palace’s intervention has guaranteed that it will have a much larger audience than its BBC2 slot might originally have generated.