Prince William's Aide Allegedly Took Desperate Measures To Get the Rose Hanbury Affair Rumors Out of the Press
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Omid Scobie’s royal biography, Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival, seems to be confirming Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s story about life behind palace walls — but from a very different perspective. The author’s sources don’t always agree with the Sussexes, but they seem to acknowledge that the couple was sold out to the British tabloids to make certain stories go away.
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Prince William’s alleged affair with Rose Hanbury, which has never been confirmed by any source, was a sore point for the palace because the story persisted in the headlines. In his book, Scobie reported that “Kensington Palace press secretary Christian Jones…pulled out all the stops to get The Sun—the first outlet to allude to the gossip—to stop poking around in the detritus of the rumor and back off.”
The author claimed that Jones started to use “tactics that teeter on the edge of ethical boundaries” and peeled back the layers on the royal family’s sketchy association with the press. Scobie ‘s source shared that Jones was “desperate to stop [the rumor} and made it his mission to do so.” The press secretary tried hard to form an alliance with Scobie, who declined, but it was apparent that Jones’ relationship with The Sun reporter Dan Wootton was blossoming at a rapid pace.
That’s when the focus allegedly turned to selling out Harry and Meghan stories in order to get William’s association with Hanbury off the front page. In an excerpt from Endgame, Scobie wrote, “Jones helped provide details to The Sun about the Sussexes’ move to Canada and their decision to step back from royal life. ‘Leaks got really obvious toward the end,’ a senior ranking courtier confided to me.” The details were so blatantly obvious that Wootton was calling for a statement before the couple had released the news. The source told Scobie, “It felt like Christian had literally been texting him under the table.”
The tangled media web that the royal family continually ensnares themselves in has become an ongoing issue. Harry and Meghan called the palace out on their press tactics, but until King Charles III makes a concrete decision to clean house, the senior royals will continue to stab each other in the back when it’s convenient for them.
Before you go, click here to see all the wild and heartbreaking details from Prince Harry’s memoir Spare.
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