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Royal Rift Deepens: Charles Didn’t Tell Harry About Cancer

Published on June 6, 2025

It’s long been whispered that King Charles and Prince Harry haven’t exactly been on the best of terms. But as time goes on, more pieces of their fractured relationship continue to emerge – and they’re raising a few eyebrows.

People Magazine recently reported that Harry only found out about his father’s latest hospital visit through the media. Yes, you read that right. Despite Charles undergoing treatment for cancer, Harry, 40, apparently didn’t get so much as a heads-up. And this was just days before he flew into London for a court hearing in April – a hearing that put him just 2.5 miles away from Buckingham Palace. Still, no meeting took place between father and son.

But the cracks may have started much earlier than most realise – and they run deep. Diana, Princess of Wales, gave a heartbreaking glimpse into Charles’s mindset around the time Harry was born. Speaking to Andrew Morton for Diana: Her True Story In Her Own Words, she shared that Charles was hoping for a girl after the birth of their first son, William.

“I knew Harry was going to be a boy because I saw on the scan,” she told Morton. “Charles always wanted a girl. He wanted two children, and he wanted a girl. I knew Harry was a boy, and I didn’t tell him.”

Prince Harry — Photo Credit: DoD News Feature

When Harry was born at St Mary’s Hospital in September 1984, Charles’s reaction, according to Diana, was less than thrilled. “First comment was: ‘Oh God, it’s a boy,’ second comment: ‘And he’s even got red hair,'” she recalled. Not exactly the warm welcome you’d hope for.

Harry echoed this in his memoir Spare, revealing he was 21 when he first heard what his father allegedly said after his birth. “‘Wonderful! Now you’ve given me an Heir and a Spare – my work is done.’ A joke. Presumably,” Harry wrote. Though he added that Charles left shortly after to meet with his girlfriend, which makes the “joke” sting that bit more.

To the press outside the hospital, Charles put on a different face. “He’s wonderful. Absolutely marvellous,” he told the gathered reporters. But Diana was already feeling the weight of his indifference. She later told friends that spiritually, their marriage ended the day Harry was born.

Their relationship was falling apart behind the palace walls. By 1986, Charles had rekindled things with Camilla, as he admitted to his biographer Jonathan Dimbleby. Diana, meanwhile, reportedly began an affair of her own around the same time. They stopped sharing a bedroom after a 1987 trip to Portugal, and by the early 90s, their marital troubles were plastered across headlines.

It all came to a head with Morton’s bombshell book in 1992, which Diana had secretly helped create through personal audio tapes. In those recordings, she said Charles’s disappointment over Harry’s gender didn’t fade – even at the baby’s christening in December 1984. After the ceremony, Charles is said to have told Diana’s mother, “We’re so disappointed, we thought it would be a girl.” Frances Shand Kydd, not holding back, reportedly snapped, “You should realise you are lucky to have a child.”

The couple officially separated just months after the book came out and divorced in 1996.

Even William’s birth came with its own frustrations. Diana revealed that the date she was induced had to work around Charles’s polo calendar. “William had to be induced because I couldn’t handle the press pressure any longer,” she said. “It was as if everyone was monitoring every day for me.”

She added with a dash of sarcasm, “We had found a date where Charles could get off his polo pony for me to give birth. That was very nice, felt grateful about that!”

From polo matches to missed hospital visits, it’s clear that the divide between father and son may have started long before Harry ever packed his bags for California.

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