This may be a full-on battle royal!
All eyes will be on the royal family this spring for King Charles’ coronation on May 6.
But it seems His Majesty’s youngest son, Prince Harry, 38, and his wife Meghan Markle, 41, may be personas non grata at the regal celebration if the couple plans to attack the King’s wife, Queen Consort Camilla, 75, in Harry’s forthcoming tell-all book.
“Almost everything Charles has done over the past 20 years has, in one way or another, been about getting Camilla accepted by the public,” a friend of Camilla’s told the Daily Beast.
“He loves her,” added the unnamed insider of the king, who is 73. “He is incredibly protective of her and he couldn’t do it without her. Even the queen finally accepted that.”
“It is one thing for Harry to attack Charles, he can take it on the chin, but if Harry forces him to choose, by laying into Camilla in his book, I have no doubt he will choose Camilla,” the friend insisted.
Sources connected to the crown also claim that the coronation guest list is still in its “TBC” or “to be confirmed” stage — which means Harry and Meghan, formerly the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, may or may not be invited to the fete.
The powerful pair renounced their royal patronages in January 2020 to lead a less spotlighted life with their small children, Archie and Lilibet, in the US.
However, despite their move for privacy, Harry’s $20 million memoir — which was rumored for release this fall, but could roll out in 2023 — will reportedly drop “truth bombs” about his estranged family.
The tome is expected to unveil once fiercely guarded secrets about the collapse of Charles’ tumultuous marriage with Harry’s late mother Princess Diana, who died in a car accident at 36 in August 1997.
In her biography, “Diana: Her True Story” by Andrew Morton published in 1992, the late princess claimed to have confronted Camilla about her ongoing affair with Charles at a birthday party in 1989.
Revering the face-off as one of her bravest moments, Diana, per excerpts from the book obtained by Vanity Fair, said to Camilla: “I know what’s going on between you and Charles, and I just want you to know that.”
To which she recalled Camilla saying, “You’ve got everything you ever wanted. All the men in the world fall in love with you, and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more do you want?” Diana recalled responding with, “I want my husband.”
Morton also claims that Camilla invited Diana to lunch before her marriage to Charles and asked Diana if she’d go hunting with him after they were married.
“Diana later realized that Camilla saw Charles’ love of hunting as a conduit to maintaining her own relationship with him,” he explained in the book.
Similarly, contentious moments and other skeletons in the royal family’s closet are said to be of top concern to Charles in regard to Harry’s soon-to-come tome.
It’s been alleged that any broadsides to Camilla’s character leveled by his son would be “devastating” to His Highness.
“There is no doubt that Charles would like Harry and Meghan to be at his coronation,” said Katie Nicholl, author of “The New Royals,” to the Daily Beast.
“And to be fair to Charles, he has been magnanimous in terms of extending, very publicly, olive branches to the Sussexes,” she noted. “Not only in his televised accession address but also putting them front and center at the funeral events.”
“But he does expect respect in return, and a problem is going to arise if, between now and then, Harry repays him by attacking him, Camilla or the institution,” continued Nicholl. “He is not going to put up with inaccurate and unfair attacks.”
And it seems that the fate of the royal family’s accord will continue to hang in the balance until the book’s release.
“The ball is in [Harry and Meghan’s] court. The royals, just like the rest of us, are waiting to see what they will do next.”
Should Harry and Meghan want to make amends, a step in that direction could be to extend well wishes to Kate and William when they visit Boston in December to promote the Earthshot Prize, Duncan Larcombe, former royal editor at the Sun, told the Daily Beast.