After more than a year of silence and swirling speculation, Prince Harry and King Charles III have finally met face-to-face for a private tea at Clarence House in London. The reunion, which took place on September 10, 2025, has reignited hopes of reconciliation within the British royal family, though it leaves the deep rift between Harry and his older brother, Prince William, as raw and unresolved as ever.
The meeting between father and son was brief—just under an hour, according to both Page Six and Newsweek. Yet, for royal watchers and family insiders alike, the significance of the event was anything but small. It marked the first time Harry and Charles had seen each other in person since the Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down from royal duties and moved to California in 2020, a decision that set off a chain of public revelations and private heartbreaks.
At his Invictus Games reception later that evening, Harry offered a succinct but positive update about his father. "Yes he's great, thank you," he told well-wishers, as reported by Page Six and Newsweek. The simple statement belied the years of tension and estrangement between the two, but it was enough to spark cautious optimism among royal observers. As one source told The Mirror, "For the first time in a long time, there's a genuine sense that reconciliation is within reach."
This sense of hope comes after a period marked by public airing of grievances and private disappointments. Since Harry and Meghan's departure from royal life, the couple has been open about their struggles with the institution, sharing details in high-profile interviews and, most notably, in Harry's 2023 memoir Spare. The book laid bare the extent of his fractured relationships with both his father and Prince William, and described moments of heated conflict, including a particularly bitter exchange with William over text in 2019. "I was a stranger to my older brother," Harry wrote. "I saved the texts. I have them still. I read them sometimes, with sadness, with confusion, thinking: 'How did we ever get there?'" (Newsweek).
Harry's relationship with Charles has been especially complicated in recent years. In May 2025, Harry told reporters that his father "won't speak to me"—a stinging admission that came in the wake of a lawsuit Harry filed against the British government. The lawsuit, and the publicity it generated, reportedly widened the distance between father and son even further. Yet, just four months later, Harry was seen arriving at Clarence House, with Buckingham Palace confirming the meeting and cameras capturing his departure after 55 minutes (Newsweek).
The timing of the reunion was not lost on royal watchers. Harry was already in London for the annual WellChild Awards on September 8, an event that coincided with the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's death. The proximity to this somber milestone seemed to add emotional weight to Harry's visit. The last time the royal brothers were together was in the days following the Queen's funeral in September 2022, when William, Kate, Meghan, and Harry met well-wishers outside Windsor Castle—a rare show of unity that now feels like a distant memory.
Despite the breakthrough with Charles, the gulf between Harry and William remains daunting. Their estrangement dates back to arguments in the run-up to Harry and Meghan's 2018 wedding, with both sides blaming each other for a breakdown in trust and communication. According to Harry's memoir, tensions flared during crisis talks in June 2018, when William reportedly rebuked Meghan for discussing Kate's hormones. "It's rude, Meghan. It's not what's done here in Britain," William said, to which Meghan replied, "Kindly take your finger out of my face." (Spare, as cited by Newsweek).
Those early disputes snowballed into a rivalry that ultimately destroyed the working relationship between the couples and their shared staff at Kensington Palace. William's camp accused Meghan of bullying staff, while Harry argued the problems stemmed from aides William had brought in from British politics. The bitterness only deepened with time, culminating in the couple's decision to leave Britain for Canada in late 2019. Harry describes a 72-hour argument with William via text, during which William accused him of being "brainwashed by therapy." Harry, for his part, appealed for William to join him for a session—an invitation that was declined (Newsweek).
Efforts to broker peace have repeatedly faltered. After Prince Philip's funeral in April 2021, the brothers attempted to talk things out, but the conversation quickly devolved into another argument. Harry recounted, "More, I'd vowed not to let this encounter devolve into another argument. But I quickly discovered that it wasn't up to me. Pa and Willy had their parts to play, and they'd come ready for a fight. Every time I ventured a new explanation, started a new line of thought, one or both of them would cut me off. Willy in particular didn't want to hear anything. After he'd shut me down several times, he and I began sniping, saying some of the same things we'd said for months—years. It got so heated that pa raised his hands. 'Enough!' He stood between us, looking up at our flushed faces: 'Please, boys—don't make my final years a misery.' His voice sounded raspy, fragile. It sounded, if I'm being honest, old." (Spare via Newsweek).
As recently as January 2023, Harry told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes that he was not in contact with William but hoped for peace: "Currently, no. But I look forward to us being able to find peace." In a separate interview with ITV's Tom Bradby, Harry said, "Forgiveness is 100 percent a possibility because I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back. At the moment, I don't recognize them, as much as they probably don't recognize me. Though I would like to have reconciliation, I would like accountability, I've managed to make peace over this time with a lot of things that have happened. But that doesn't mean that I'm just going to let it go. You know, I've made peace with it, but I still would like reconciliation. And not only would that be wonderful for us [the Sussexes], but it would be fantastic for them as well."
King Charles' own health scare earlier this year—his cancer diagnosis in February 2024—briefly brought Harry back to Britain, though the two shared less than an hour together. On a subsequent visit in May, they did not meet, with Harry's spokesperson attributing the lack of contact to Charles' "other priorities." It wasn't until this September that the two finally sat down together, raising the possibility of a new chapter, at least between father and son.
The British public and media once saw William and Harry's bond as unbreakable, forged in the crucible of losing their mother, Princess Diana, in 1997. Now, the hope for a full family reconciliation seems distant. Yet, as the events of this week have shown, even the most entrenched divisions can shift—if only by a little—when the right moment comes along.