Prince Harry may have put his fragile reconciliation with his father, King Charles III, at risk by giving an interview after their meeting in London last week, telling The Guardian he has no regrets about sharing royal secrets or criticizing family members in his 2023 memoir, “Spare,” according to a royal expert.

“It was a series of corrections to stories already out there,” Harry told The Guardian during an interview which took place during his surprise visit to war-torn Ukraine on Friday, following four days in London. “One point of view had been put out and it needed to be corrected.”

“I don’t believe that I aired my dirty laundry in public,” the California-based Duke of Sussex continued. “It was a difficult message, but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear.” He also said that his wife, Meghan Markle, assured him he could do no wrong by telling “the truth.”

“She said ‘just stick to the truth,’” Harry said. “It is the thing I always fall back on. Always.”

FILE – Britain’s Prince William, known as the Duke of Rothesay while in Scotland, and King Charles III during the National Service of Thanksgiving and Dedication for King Charles III and Queen Camilla, and the presentation of the Honours of Scotland, at St Giles’ Cathedral, in Edinburgh, Wednesday, July 5, 2023. Buckingham Palace says King Charles III will undergo a “corrective procedure” next week for an enlarged prostate. (Jane Barlow/Pool photo via AP, File) 

While Harry may insist that his “conscience is clear,” his “uncompromising” view that he’s usually in the right, both about speaking out against his family and his version of family conflicts, “may sound warning sirens about whether reconciliation is possible in the long-term,” Newsweek’s royal correspondent Jack Royston wrote. In a possible sign that the royal establishment remains wary about Harry’s intentions, his family didn’t wish him a happy 41st birthday on his social media accounts Monday, the Daily Mail reported. 

From Harry’s comments to The Guardian, it also appears that he may be unwilling to take accountability for his part in the breakdown of his relationship with his father or with his brother, Prince William, and his sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, according to Royston. His memoir, “Spare” included some pretty “incendiary” claims about his family, which reportedly caused a huge amount of hurt and anger, especially because William, Kate and the other royal family are barred by royal custom from publicly responding to criticism.

Harry’s claims include his description of William having a nasty temper and allegedly attacking Harry and pushing a false narrative about Meghan bullying palace staff.

In “Spare,” Harry also alleged that Kate made Meghan cry in the days before their wedding and portrayed Charles’ wife, Queen Camilla, as “dangerous” because her team supposedly leaked negative stories about him and Meghan to the British tabloids.

And as much as Harry has publicly decried leaks to the media, he and Meghan have reportedly done plenty of leaking themselves throughout the years of family strife and estrangement, before and after they left royal duties in 2020 and moved to the United States.

For example, it’s possible that someone close to Harry went to a friendly U.S. publication to share a few private details about his “emotional” and tearful Sept. 10 meeting with the king, after nearly two years of estrangement. If Harry or his team leaked such details, they would be in violation of a reported promise he made to his father. An insider had told the Daily Mail that Harry assured his father he wouldn’t give any interviews about the meeting and his team would not brief journalists on what he and his father talked about.

But over the weekend, an “insider,” who appears to be speaking on behalf of Harry, talked to Us Weekly about the meeting, saying it was full of “hugs and tears.”

“They shared a long hug when they first saw each other,” the insider told Us Weekly. “Harry started crying and it was very emotional for both of them. They really missed each other.”

Some royal experts have portrayed Us Weekly as being friendly to Harry and Meghan, as Royston reported in 2024. Its editor in chief Dan Wakeford was instrumental in publishing a couple lengthy stories that were flattering to Meghan, including a 2024 story in which Meghan’s U.S. staff denied a Hollywood Reporter story that said that her alleged staff-bullying tendencies followed her to America.

For Us Weekly’s story about Harry’s meeting with Charles at Clarence House, the king’s London residence, an “insider” told the outlet that the meeting was prompted by a handwritten letter Harry wrote tthat his focus in the coming year “has to be on my dad.”

Harry told the BBC during a May 2025 interview that he was eager for a reconciliation, saying his father had stopped taking his phone calls because of his court fight against the U.K. government over losing the level of taxpayer-funded police security he wanted to have while he and his family visit the U.K. (He and Meghan lost a high level of automatic police security when they stepped down as senior members of the royal family.) In May, Harry lost a court appeal to have the security reinstated.

“Life is precious,” Harry told the BBC at the time. “I don’t know how much longer my father has.”