Grant Harrold was a butler in Highgrove, King Charles’s private country home, from the years of 2004-2011. Harrold has parlayed this into a second career as a royal commentator, lip-reader, and author. He’s written a book which will come out shortly, and during the book promotion, he’s saying some weird stuff about Prince Harry especially. I guess that’s what sells if you’re looking to make a career out of royal-commentary within the UK. As we’ve seen with Omid Scobie, once you go outside of the British media’s ecosystem, there’s a real interest in and audience for narratives free of the palace’s talking points. In any case, Harrold previously said that he didn’t believe that Harry was wary of Camilla, or upset when Camilla married Charles. Harrold also said that Harry and Kate used to hang out all the time. Now Harrold is pulling all of his superior knowledge of the inner workings of the Windsor clan to discuss whether there could ever be a reconciliation.
A former royal butler says it’s possible that the royals may never appear in public again as a ‘united family’. Grant Harrold was a personal butler for King Charles at his private residence Highgrove for more than six years. From 2004 to 2011, he also served Queen Camilla, Princes Harry and William and Kate. Grant, who has written a new book titled The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life of Royal Service, discussed the rift between Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, and the rest of the family with the Mirror.
“Things are such a mess right now,” Harrold told The Mirror with regard to the two brothers. “I think we have to accept that there is a real possibility that we may never see them as a united family in public.”
The former butler noted that William and Harry were “inseparable” following Princess Diana’s death, so much so that he would have “bet £100″ that they would never have a falling out. “And when all the conflict really started, I was asking myself ‘Why has this all gone so badly wrong?’ I couldn‘t wrap my head around it,” Harrold recalled. “Now they’re not even speaking to each other, and they used to speak all the time. It’s really sad.”
There may yet be a reconciliation, he added, but it could take place behind closed doors. Grant added: ‘I think families fall out and families can heal, but it’s never the same. So yes I can see a reconciliation, I can see Harry coming back, but not in the Firm as it used to be. I don’t see Harry and Meghan ever on the Palace balcony for Trooping the Colour for example, but I can see the family patching things up behind closed doors and working towards the King seeing his grandchildren [Archie and Lilibet].’
According to the former royal butler, he thinks that a rapprochement behind the scenes is ‘what they’re trying to work toward’, and that the Royal Family may want to be a family away from the spotlight, not necessarily in the eyes of the public. He added that he sees King Charles as an ‘exceptionally compassionate man’, and believes the monarch could play an instrumental role in any potential future reconciliation.
[From InStyle & The Daily Mail]
“And when all the conflict really started, I was asking myself ‘Why has this all gone so badly wrong?’ I couldn‘t wrap my head around it.” Why is anyone paying this man for commentary? Why is he flogging a book about his royal years? Even the most conservative monarchist commentators fully acknowledge the roots of the brothers’ falling out: William and Harry fell out over Meghan, and William’s jealousy over Harry’s marriage to Meghan, and Harry’s refusal to divorce his wife when William tried to order it. Not to mention William’s violent attack on Harry. Again, this is why Spare was and is so important – a historical record, a narrative of events straight from the person who experienced all of it.
As for Harrold’s theory on reconciliation – that bloody f–king balcony. The way they go on and on about the fakakta balcony, you would think it was the biggest honor ever. I hope the left-behinds enjoy that balcony as the numbers keep dwindling. Not just the dwindling number of left-behinds on the balcony, but the dwindling number of people who actually care enough to come out.
He also bizarrely claimed that Meghan canceled events because she wanted to have tea with friends? Again, why is anyone paying for this guy’s commentary??
‘I think Meghan maybe went in thinking she could do things the way she wanted’@CamillaTominey and @timothy_stanley are joined by Grant Harrold (@TheRoyalButler) who suggests when things ‘started to go wrong’ between Meghan and the Royal Family
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— The Daily T (@DailyTPodcast) August 22, 2025
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
