Gayle King: Harry and William Have Talked Since the Oprah Interview Aired. It Was ‘Unproductive.’

Reuters/Toby Melville
Reuters/Toby Melville
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It sounds like there’s a very long way to go until the royal rift between Prince Harry and his family can even begin to heal.

According to Harry and Meghan Markle’s friend Gayle King, he’s spoken to brother Prince William and dad Prince Charles since last week’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, but little progress has been made.

King said on Tuesday’s CBS This Morning that she’d been in touch with Harry since the Oprah interview aired and he revealed that he’d phoned home. But, she added, “The word I was given, those conversations were not productive... But they are glad they at least started a conversation.”

When speaking to Oprah, Harry said that his relationship with his dad got so bad at one point last year that Charles stopped taking his calls. Then, Meghan and Harry made the shocking allegation that a member of the royal family expressed concerns about how dark their unborn baby’s skin would be. Speculation has raged about who made the comment, and Harry has only ruled out Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

The call must have taken place in recent days. At his first public engagement after the interview last week, William said he hadn’t spoken to Harry since the show aired but planned to do so. At the same event, William was asked if his family was racist, and the second-in-line heir to the British throne said, “We’re very much not a racist family.”

The post-Oprah hurt between William and Harry is so deep that reports in the British press suggested that they will refuse to come together for a long-scheduled unveiling of a memorial to their mother Princess Diana.

However, there was some good news for the family on Tuesday—Prince Philip, 99, finally returned home to Windsor Castle after spending 28 nights in a hospital and undergoing heart surgery.

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