Prince Harry Takes Queen Camilla's Position as the 'Despised Outcast' in the Royal Family
Princess Diana dubbed Queen Camilla the third person in her marriage to King Charles.
Nov. 25 2024, Published 6:20 p.m. ET
Queen Camilla has become more popular in recent years, but as her approval rating continues to improve, Prince Harry's dwindles.
Queen Camilla has become more popular after her marriage to King Charles was overshadowed by their scandal.
"I think it's very interesting to see how Harry's position and Camilla's position within the royal family has reversed," journalist Petronella Wyatt said in the documentary Queen Camilla: The Wicked Stepmother?
"Because Camilla used to be the hated and despised outcast, now Harry's the outcast and Camilla's seen with affection as a sort of safe pair of hands," Wyatt added.
Prince Harry called Queen Camilla 'wicked' in 'Spare.'
Princess Diana dubbed Camilla the third person in her marriage to King Charles, resulting in Camilla being haunted by the affair throughout her royal career.
"I think Camilla, far from being the simple country woman that we were sold is actually a very shrewd politically media savvy person," Diana's former private secretary Patrick Jephson noted.
"We are told that the campaign to rehabilitate Camilla has been subtle," Joseph noted. "I don't think it's been subtle at all. It's got all the subtlety of a sledgehammer."
In Spare, Harry accused his stepmother of leaking negative stories about him.
"I think Charles' office was pretty cold-blooded in the way they used Harry, misrepresenting facts in order to portray his father and his mistress in a better light," Jephson explained.
King Charles married Queen Camilla in 2005, and Prince Harry claimed he begged his father not to marry his now-wife.
Harry described his complicated dynamic with Camilla in Spare.
"I recall wondering, right before the tea, if she'd be mean to me," Harry penned. "If she'd be like all the wicked stepmothers in storybooks. But she wasn't. Like Willy, I did feel real gratitude for that."
"That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press," he continued. "And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information."
Due to the structure of the monarchy, Harry alluded to him being sacrificed to help Camilla's rebrand.
"And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that," the duke shared.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry complained about how they were treated by British press.
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Harry also claimed Mark Bolland, who was an aide for Charles and Camilla, worked with the media to help soften a story being written about the then-Duchess of Cornwall.
"I think it was a very bad decision on Bolland's part. I think Charles was slightly distracted at the time. I think he would probably feel now that he shouldn't have allowed that to appear," Wyatt shared.
"Because it does look like a son being sacrificed to make his father look better," Wyatt continued.
Before Charles ascended to the throne, Queen Elizabeth publicly endorsed Camilla taking on her current role.
"The campaign for Camilla's rehabilitation really hit the nail on the head when the Queen herself made a statement in which it was her dearest wish that Camilla become the queen consort," former royal correspondent Charles Rae said. "Here was the queen herself putting the final seal of approval on the woman from Wiltshire."
