Prince William is "curtailed by all the anxiety on his shoulder" after Princess Kate and King Charles III's cancer scares, according to royal biographer Tina Brown.
The former magazine editor said William was "upstaged" by Prince Harry, while the royals could use the Duke of Sussex as a "pretty upbeat, joyful ambassador to the world."
Harry quit the palace in 2020 in the midst of a rift with his brother that has never healed.
At the same time, the king's monarchy has been short of working royals after he and Kate had to take time off to undergo treatment for cancer in 2024.
"You've basically got Charles who's got cancer," Brown told The Ankler podcast, "you've got Kate whose been through this terrible cancer bout herself and had to leave the stage for nearly a year and William who's so curtailed by all the sort of anxiety on his shoulder.
"His wife and his father and the whole thing. They could use a pretty upbeat joyful ambassador to the world, who would be Harry.
"The problem is they have very much the same problem that I talked about with Princess Diana and Charles, which was known as the upstage problem. He does upstage William. There's no doubt about it, you know, on the stage."
Harry told Oprah Winfrey the royals were initially welcoming of wife Meghan Markle but the atmosphere turned after they "got to see how incredible she [Meghan] is at the job."
He also talked in his book about rivalry with William: "It was all so obvious. He cared less about finding his purpose or passion than about winning his lifelong competition with me.
"Over several more heated discussions, it emerged that Willy, when I'd gone to the North Pole, had sadly been resentful. He'd felt slighted that he hadn't been the one invited."
On the future of Harry and William's relationship, Brown gave a bleak verdict: "Unfortunately I think that the hostility between Harry and William is such that I don't think William will ever want Harry back."
The Sussexes were initially popular in Britain, even after the media had been relentlessly negative about them in 2019, but their star began to fall after their decision to quit in 2020.
They plunged further after the Oprah interview and their net approval rating remains deep in negative territory in 2024.
Brown said Harry could be welcomed again by the U.K. public but not Meghan: "I think if he came back alone they would [welcome him] but not if he came with Meghan.
"And I don't think that Meghan ever will because she really, really hated England for reasons I understand, I mean, she didn't get the culture.
Brown added: "She just didn't get it and feels so rejected by England but England feels very rejected by Meghan so its a kind of impasse there."
"In England they're going to sort of constantly make a career out of sort of trashing Harry," she continued, "but the thing about Harry is that he's very, very good at being Prince Harry.
"That's the tragedy of all of this is that he is the most talented member of the royal family without doubt in terms of being a prince, which is all he does know how to do."
And she praised the prince's performance on overseas visits, such as to Nigeria and Colombia this year: "He's really good when he goes on these much mocked foreign trips for instance, he's just really good at it. He's charming he's funny, he's sweet, he's authentic, he has a real sense of being true and real. He's really sort of flawless at it."
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, 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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