Prince Harry and Prince William may have seemed close growing up, but this didn’t always appear be the case. While Harry, 40, and William, 42, were like any other brothers behind closed doors, it seems that when they attended Eton school, the younger prince didn’t feel welcomed by his older brother. Harry, who quit royal life in 2020, has spoken about feeling left out by his brother when he arrived at Eton, a school he reportedly struggled to fit in at.
Previously speaking to TV host Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes in 2023, the Duke of Sussex once said that he took it “personally” when William reportedly didn’t want to be seen at school with him, even though he now understands this is typical of older siblings around the world. In the interview, host Cooper prompted the prince to talk about his Eton days by saying: “Your brother told you, ‘Pretend we don’t know each other’.” Harry then replied: “Yeah, and at the time it hurt.”
Harry continued: “I couldn’t make sense of it. I was like, ‘What do you mean? We’re now at the same school. Like, I haven’t seen you for ages, now we get to hang out together.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, no, when we’re at school we don’t know each other.’ And I took that personally.”
This seemed to be one of the reasons Harry was not a fan at Eton, followed by the fact that he never really felt like he fit in.
The duke spoke about this briefly in Spare, even admitting that when it came to sport he didn’t fit in to one group only.
He said: “Sport, I decided, would be my thing at Eton. Sporty boys were separated into two groups: dry bobs and wet bobs.”
The duke continued: “Dry bobs played cricket, football, rugby, or polo. Wet bobs rowed, sailed, or swam. I was a dry who occasionally got wet.
“I played every dry sport, though rugby captured my heart. Beautiful game, plus a good excuse to run into stuff very hard. Rugby let me indulge my rage. I simply didn’t feel pain the way other boys did, which made me scary on a pitch.”
While Harry was reportedly not a fan of Eton, Prince William seemed to enjoy his time at the school and may be considering sending his own son Prince George, 11, there in the future when his time at Lambrook School comes to an end.
George is believed to have already visited Eton with his parents Prince William and Princess Kate.