Prince William's Team Allegedly Admits 'Lines Were Crossed' After Rose Hanbury Rumors, Says Royal Biographer
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Prince William‘s alleged reaction to stories linking him to Rose Hanbury has been surfaced by royal biographer Omid Scobie’s latest release, Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival and though the PR machine behind the future king were allegedly ruthless in their efforts to bury the story, Scobie tells us that there is some remorse about the lines that were crossed from William’s camp.
A major turning point in William’s fallout with Prince Harry appears to date back to 2019 when rumors accusing William of having an affair were quickly replaced with an uptick in negative stories about Harry and Meghan Markle. This, and many other events, pushed the brothers’ relationship to breaking point but, as Scobie told SheKnows in an exclusive interview, William’s team now regrets their handling of the crisis.
“There’s definitely a feeling that those days were like dark times, and lines were crossed on all sides. Now, none of that’s ever publicly admitted but it’s certainly acknowledged by a few,” Scobie says.
As Scobie describes in the book, a 2019 report in The Sun claimed that Hanbury, also known as the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, had fallen out with close friend Kate Middleton, who allegedly told her husband to cut ties with the Marchioness. This prompted a blaze of social media and tabloid gossip accusing the Prince of having an affair with Hanbury.
Scobie claims Christian Jones, who was the head of communications for Kensington Palace at the time, told him he met Prince William and his private secretary, Simon Case, to directly ask about the story. “Oh my God, I had to ask if they [the rumors] were true,” Jones allegedly told Scobie. William was reportedly “furious when the question came up.”
What followed, Scobie notes, was a slew of stories about Harry and Meghan that replaced any mainstream coverage of the affair rumors. Scobie claims an editor at The Sun told him it became too difficult to cover William and Hanbury due to the Palace’s heated response. “There was a nice stream of Harry and Meghan stuff coming in so [the editors] were happy,” Scobie claims the editor told him.
Scobie adds, “Harry even wondered if someone at the Palace had helped move certain journalist on to other stories — and away from the Rose gossip. He would later find out he was right.”
“There’s definitely an understanding that that was a bad time,” Scobie said during our interview. “But I think that, whilst that’s great to hear and I hope that continues to be the case, we should be able to look back at that time, and actually look, try and understand what led to some of these more fractured moments.”
Scobie emphasizes that he doesn’t believe rumors should be given too much attention, and it should be noted that he doesn’t explicitly mention an affair in the book. Instead, he says the moment illustrates what Harry and Meghan were put through in order to protect William’s reputation.
“There was a long list of things that Harry and Megan experienced during the time as working royals that largely involved information about them being used as currency, to avoid crises and other area,” Scobie says. “Anatomizing the rollout of what went on behind the scenes gives us a better understanding of how the fractures between William and Harry were hammered on and and sort of why we’ve reached this moment of no return.”
Before you go, click here to see all the wild and heartbreaking details from Prince Harry’s memoir Spare.