Prince Harry Jokes About “Challenging” Sibling Relationships During His First Day Out in the U.K.

Amid a brotherly feud that doesn’t seem to show signs of stopping, Prince Harry commented on “challenging” sibling relationships while in the U.K., just miles away from his estranged brother Prince William.

While at the 2025 WellChild Awards in London—an organization the Duke of Sussex has been patron of for 17 years—Harry cracked a joke about sibling bonds on September 8, which also marked the third anniversary of the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, at 96 years old in 2022.

At a reception before the awards ceremony, Harry met with Declan Bitmead, 17, one of the award winners. Per Hello!, after Harry asked Declan about his family, he responded, “I’ve got a younger brother.”

“Does he drive you mad?” Harry asked him, before learning that Declan and his brother get along just fine. “You know what, siblings,” Harry said, laughing.

When Harry learned that Declan and his brother attended the same school, Harry responded, “That sometimes makes it more challenging.” In his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry acutely addressed this, writing of Harry’s arrival at Eton College—where William was already a student—that his older brother “had told me to pretend I didn’t know him,” Harry wrote (via People). “For the last two years, he explained, Eton had been his sanctuary. No kid brother tagging along, pestering him with questions, pushing up on his social circle. He was forging his own life, and he wasn’t willing to give that up.”

“None of which was all that new,” Harry added. “Willy always hated it when anyone made the mistake of thinking of us as a package deal…And now, to attend the same school was pure murder.”

Speaking to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, Harry said of William’s behavior then, “I couldn’t make sense of it. I was like, ‘What do you mean? We’re now at the same school. Like, I haven’t seen you for ages—now we get to hang out together.’”

“He’s like, ‘No, no, no, when we’re at school, we don’t know each other,’” Harry continued. “And I took that personally.”

Though there is a chance that Harry could have a face-to-face meetup with his father, King Charles, during his four days in his home country, there seems to be little chance of a reunion with the Prince of Wales. William addressed sibling relationships himself over the summer, while speaking at the Army Air Corps. According to The Daily Mail, William asked, “Is the pace of life good at the moment?” to which one man responded that it was “a mixed bag.”

“Families okay? See you enough?” William responded. “Some of them might not want to see you that much. It’s a mixed bag sometimes.”

Elsewhere at the WellChild Awards, Harry revealed that he and wife Meghan Markle are watching the political thriller Hostage together—and, perhaps slightly more surprisingly, the dating reality show Love Is Blind. WellChild—the U.K.’s national charity for seriously ill children—“shines a light on the remarkable resilience and heroic qualities of children and young people living with complex medical needs and honor[s] the dedication of those around them who go the extra mile to help these children thrive,” Hello! reported. 

Speaking to the outlet, Harry said, “I think once you become a parent yourself, everything changes. It’s emotional enough not being a parent and seeing what these families go through, but then when you have your own kids or when you’re expecting your own kids, that’s when it really hits you.”

Harry and Meghan are parents to Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4, and the Duke of Sussex recalled the 2018 WellChild Awards, held after he and Meghan learned they were expecting son Archie the next year: “And I remember one of these years, I choked up on stage, and that was exactly it,” he said. “I am so grateful to have healthy kids.”