Prince Harry isn’t afraid to include receipts in his memoir, Spare, which officially releases today.
Previously leaked excerpts of the book reveal the tense exchange between Catherine, Princess of Wales, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, days before the Sussexes’ 2018 wedding, claiming that Kate made Meghan cry after she demanded that “all the dresses” for the flower girls be remade. As it turns out, Harry even includes the actual text messages from their fight in his book.
“Charlotte’s dress is too big, too long, too baggy,” Kate allegedly texts Meghan, referring to Princess Charlotte’s flower girl dress. Harry notes in the book that the dresses were made from measurements obtained at a previous fitting. “She cried when she tried it on at home,” Kate texts.
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Meghan reminds Kate that a tailor who could perform alterations was already at Kensington Palace, writing back, “Right, and I told you the tailor has been standing by since 8am. Here. At KP. Can you take Charlotte to have it altered, as the other mums are doing?”
Still, Kate demands that “all the dresses be remade.” She allegedly cites the advice of her own wedding dress designer, Alexander McQueen’s Sarah Burton, who agrees with her.
Meghan then asks Kate if she knows the stress she is under due to the drama surrounding her father, Thomas Markle.
“Meg asked if Kate was aware of what was going on right now. With her father,” Harry reportedly writes. “Kate said she was well aware, but the dresses. And the wedding is in four days!”
Meghan responds, “Yes, Kate, I know … .”
Princess Charlotte and Princess Kate at the 2018 Sussex wedding.
Harry adds that Kate had “problems with the way Meg was planning her wedding. Something about a party for the page boys? It went back and forth.”
Meghan allegedly texts the Princess of Wales, “I’m not sure what else to say. If the dress doesn’t fit then please take Charlotte to see Ajay. He’s been waiting all day.”
“Fine,” Kate answers.
Harry writes that, when he came home, he found his wife-to-be “sobbing” on the floor.
When tabloids reported that Meghan had made Kate cry months later, the two couples had a secret meeting at Meghan and Harry’s home at Nottingham Cottage on December 10, 2018. Together, the four found out that King Charles III may have been behind the leaked story.
“We all gathered in our little front annexe, and this time there was no small talk: Kate got things rolling straightaway by acknowledging that the stories in the papers about Meg making her cry were totally false,” Harry writes. He adds that Kate allegedly said, “I know, Meghan, that I was the one who made you cry.”
When it came to taking action about setting the record straight, Kate became “flustered” while William gave” supportive-sounding evasions.” When they realized that no action would be taken, the Sussexes decided to focus on who leaked the story to the tabloids.
“We went around and around,” Harry continues. “The list of suspects became vanishingly small. Finally, finally, Willy leaned back and conceded that, ahem, while we’d been on tour in Australia, he and Kate had gone to dinner with Pa [King Charles III] and Camilla. And, alas, he said sheepishly he ‘might’ve’ let it slip and that there’s been strife between the two couples.”
The admission shocked Meghan and Harry. “I put my hand over my face. Meg froze. A heavy silence fell. So now we knew,” he writes. “I told Willy you of all people should’ve known. He nodded. He knew. More silence. It was time for them to go.”
Meghan talked about the incident during a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which she refuted the tabloid story.
“I don’t think it’s fair to her to get into the details of [the fight], because she apologized. And I’ve forgiven her. What was hard to get over was being blamed for something that not only I didn’t do, but that happened to me,” the duchess said at the time. “And the people who were part of our wedding going to our comms team and saying, ‘I know this didn’t happen.'”
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As an associate editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, Chelsey keeps a finger on the pulse on all things celeb news. She also writes on social movements, connecting with activists leading the fight on workers’ rights, climate justice, and more. Offline, she’s probably spending too much time on TikTok, rewatching Emma (the 2020 version, of course), or buying yet another corset.
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