The Royal Family has been at the center of several controversies after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made a series of allegations against the Firm in recent months. Now, one royal expert claimed that there’s already a “fierce and bitter” fight even before these claims emerged.

Allegedly, tensions between Prince Harry and his older brother Prince William arise after Markle joined the Royal Family back in 2018. This is what Robert Lacey detailed in the latest chapters of his book, Battle of Brothers: The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult.

Prior to the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in May 2018, the author writes that the royal siblings tried to repair their relationship and work their differences out. However, the situation has gotten even worse between them.

According to Lacey, Prince William heard about the alleged bullying claims against Meghan from a senior palace aide. The Duke of Cambridge confronted Prince Harry about this, but the latter allegedly hang up the phone and it has led to a “fierce and bitter” fight.

“Harry shut off his phone angrily, so William went to speak to him personally. The prince was horrified by what he had just been told about Meghan’s alleged behavior, and he wanted to hear what Harry had to say. The showdown between the brothers was fierce and bitter,” Lacey wrote.

The author added that Prince William removed both Prince Harry and Markle from the joint office they shared after allegedly the bullying allegations. This report comes just more than a week before unveiling their late mother’s, Princess Diana, statue on July 1.

Buckingham Palace is said to be investigating these alleged bullying claims at the moment, while the Sussexes’ spokesman said Prince Harry and Markle were “victims of a calculated smear campaign based on misleading and harmful misinformation”.

Meanwhile, the alleged rift between the royal siblings has been running around in several news outlets after Prince Harry and Markle had a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. At the time, the Duke of Sussex talked about Prince William and their father, Prince Charles.

He said that he didn’t realize he was trapped, referring to the time he spent at the firm before he and the Duchess of Sussex stepped down as senior royal members of the Royal Family in 2020. Prince Harry said that he and his older brother grew apart and commented on his father’s parenting.

In another report, Markle appears in an interview for the first time since the tell-all interview with Oprah. Joining the NPR Weekend Edition on Sunday, the Duchess of Sussex talked about her best-selling children's book, The Bench.

Markle shared that The Bench was inspired by the poems she wrote for Prince Harry after giving birth to their first son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. She described the book as a love story and hopes that “people can see this as a love story that transcends the story of her family.”