Prince Harry and Queen Camilla's "position within the royal family has reversed," with the duke now the "despised outcast," according to a friend of Camilla's.
The Duke of Sussex's narrative that his stepmother schemed to undermine him and Meghan while boosting herself has been explored by a hard-hitting new documentary in Britain.
Queen Camilla: The Wicked Stepmother? charted the queen's controversial arrival on the public stage as King Charles III and Princess Diana's marriage was disintegrating through to her elevation to Queen Consort.
And during the Channel 4 show, broadcast in Britain on Sunday, her friend and journalist Petronella Wyatt suggested it is now Harry who is viewed as a hate figure in Britain.
"I think its very interesting to see how Harry's position and Camilla's position within the royal family has reversed," Wyatt said. "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."
Patrick Jephson, Princess Diana's former private secretary, told the documentary: "I think Camilla, far from being the simple country woman that we were sold is actually a very shrewd politically media savvy person.
"We are told that the campaign to rehabilitate Camilla has been subtle. I don't think it's been subtle at all. It's got all the subtlety of a sledgehammer."
"I think Charles' office were pretty cold blooded in the way they used Harry," he continued, "misrepresenting facts in order to portray his father and his mistress in a better light."
The reference to Camilla as a "wicked stepmother" is attributed in the show to author Tom Quinn, who suggests Harry described her that way to him at a polo match.
However, Harry used the phrase in his book Spare when describing their first meeting over tea: "I recall wondering, right before the tea, if she'd be mean to me. If she'd be like all the wicked stepmothers in storybooks. But she wasn't. Like Willy, I did feel real gratitude for that."
Harry told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes in 2023 that Camilla was dangerous "because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image."
"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.
"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 documentary charts one incident Harry described in his book, where King Charles and Camilla's aide Mark Bolland cooperated with a tabloid newspaper to try to soften a story about the prince smoking cannabis in 2002.
The version that eventually ran suggested Charles had sent Harry to rehab, when he had actually visited a rehab center to learn about its work.
Petronella Wyatt, a journalist and friend of Queen Camilla, said: "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.
"Because it does look like a son being sacrificed to make his father look better."
By February 2022, and the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne, Camilla had secured her destiny as Queen Consort.
Charles Rae, former royal correspondent at The Sun, told the documentary: "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. Here was the queen herself putting the final seal of approval on the woman from Wiltshire."
Not everyone, though, agreed with Harry's characterization of Camilla as a schemer who cooperated with the press.
Royal biographer Robert Jobson, author of Our King, said: "Harry's has got a blinkered view about how the media works, but also how the palace works. I mean, the idea that Camilla is orchestrating these leaks is a nonsense."
Jack Royston is Newsweek's chief royal correspondent based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III and Queen Camilla, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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