Harry and William's relationship is now 'hanging by a thread' as King tries to keep line open

Prince Harry’s ties with William ‘hangs by a thread’ ahead of the publication of his tell-all memoir, sources said last night.

Insiders fear the strained relationship between the brothers is likely to be further damaged by attacks on the Prince of Wales and his wife Kate in the controversial book, due out next week.

The Duke of Sussex is expected to claim in ‘Spare’ how unfair it was that he was always forced to play ‘second fiddle’ to his older brother, who is the heir to the British throne. 

The memoir is said to be ‘tough on William’ and includes a description of a fight between the pair, as well as ‘a broadside’ against Kate.

Harry has also reportedly been warned that tarnishing the reputation of Camilla, Queen Consort is a ‘red line’ for his father King Charles.

The King is said to fare better than his eldest son, but is already wounded by criticisms of him and other senior royals in Harry’s Netflix series with wife Meghan.

Sources say that while the King is deeply hurt and bewildered by Harry’s actions, he is still keen to keep a line of communication open, however guarded. ‘Whether Prince William would be so receptive is another question,’ one source said.

‘Things are hanging by a thread as it is after the past few months, and from the sounds of it Harry’s memoir is unlikely to help.’

The Daily Mail has previously reported that while friends find it hard to believe that the brothers will never talk again after all they have been through, William feels betrayed and angered by his brother’s constant attacks on the Royal Family.

There is also deep concern that anything they say privately could be made public by Harry or Meghan.

While Buckingham Palace is refusing to comment or get caught up in a ‘pointless tit for tat’ public row with the Sussexes, there is a degree of ‘apprehension’ about Harry’s memoir.

A source with knowledge of the book, provocatively titled Spare, told The Sunday Times they believed it would cause irrevocable damage to the brothers’ relationship.

The source said: ‘Generally, I think the book [will be] worse for them than the Royal Family is expecting. Everything is laid bare. Charles comes out of it better than I expected, but it’s tough on William in particular, and even Kate gets a bit of a broadside.

‘There are these minute details, and a description of the fight between the brothers. I personally can’t see how Harry and William will be able to reconcile after this.’

The book will effectively be about the sibling rivalry between Princes Harry and William, a source told the Sun. 

They said it will reveal that Harry’s ‘bitterness and feelings of unfairness’ due to his older brother’s birthright to become King means he has always ‘played second fiddle to older William’.

But their mother Princess Diana warned the siblings they ‘must never fall out’ as they would need each other, the source said adding that it was ‘very sad’ their falling out had got this far. 

In the Harry & Meghan Netflix series, Harry, 38, accused his father of lying to him as the family attempted to negotiate a ‘Megxit’ deal for the couple at a crisis summit at Sandringham in January 2020.

He said that it was ‘terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me and my father say things that just simply weren’t true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in’.

He also claimed that senior royals were jealous of Meghan’s popularity and attempted to tear her down by planting negative stories against her in the media.

The Sunday Times source said the book – due to be published on January 10 – explored Harry’s grief over the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

They said: ‘The overall impression is that this is a man who has never recovered from the trauma of his mother dying so young, and then along comes Meghan and he projects on to her a parallel with Diana.’

Spare is written by JR Moehringer, a Pulitzer prize-winning former journalist who was also the ghost writer for Andre Agassi’s best-selling autobiography.

The book’s publisher Penguin Random House claims that it will be a ‘landmark publication’, telling his story with ‘raw, unflinching honesty’.

Harry is also expected to give two high-profile television interviews to promote it.

He has reportedly already recorded an ITV interview in California with its News At Ten presenter Tom Bradby, a former royal correspondent who has known both William and Harry for decades.

The second television interview will be with broadcaster CBS in the US. It will be conducted by news anchor Anderson Cooper and is set to be shown on Sunday.

Publishing sources also said Harry was expected to do at least one newspaper interview, potentially with The New York Times. Buckingham Palace is expected to maintain its silence about his accusations. But they are unlikely to end with his memoir.

After quitting as working royals, Harry and Meghan struck lucrative deals with Netflix, Spotify and Penguin Random House which commit them to further projects. Their publishing deal is understood to be for four books, which could include a bombshell memoir by Meghan.

The duchess, 41, is known to have kept a personal diary while she was in Britain.

She has previously released a children’s book, The Bench, with the same publisher and the couple are said to be working on a book about ‘wellness’. But some have warned there could be a danger of over-exposure, following their Oprah interview, the Netflix series and Harry’s memoir.

One senior Hollywood executive told The Mail on Sunday: ‘If I was advising her I would caution against releasing a book too quickly because there is a very real danger that people will start experiencing ‘Sussex fatigue’.

‘There comes a point where people might feel they’ve heard the same stories too many times. They have to change the narrative at some stage and focus on the future rather than the past.’