\n<\/p>\n
Prince Harry<\/strong> has angered many inside the palace with the disclosures in his memoir,\u00a0Spare,<\/em>\u00a0but his decision to include a conversation between\u00a0Meghan Markle<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Kate Middleton<\/strong>\u00a0in the run-up to Harry and Meghan\u2019s wedding could be the most controversial. In describing the now-infamous bridesmaid\u2019s dress incident, Harry included a few terse words from Kate about how\u00a0Princess Charlotte<\/strong>\u00a0cried over her ill-fitting dress, along with a few responses from Meghan looking for a solution.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last week, sources close to\u00a0Prince William<\/strong> told\u00a0Vanity Fair<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that he was angry that Harry had turned on Kate, whom he was once close with, and for revealing that Charlotte was in tears. This week, a royal insider told\u00a0Us Weekly<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that Buckingham Palace \u201cdoes not love\u201d that the private messages have been made public. \u201cThey claim it\u2019s just part of the story, and in any event, it\u2019s egregious of Harry to publish these abbreviated excerpts,\u201d the insider continued, adding that the texts \u201cclearly show that there are two sides\u201d to every story. \u201cHarry feels strongly it\u2019s important to get the true account of what happened out there.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that in\u00a0Spare,<\/em> Harry doesn\u2019t say he is sharing any text messages verbatim, only the fact that Kate and Meghan had texted about the issue with the dresses. Then, he writes, \u201cThey set up a time to speak that afternoon.\u201d The words that follow, which some outlets have quoted as text messages, are actually snippets from the conversation that Harry subsequently implies he didn\u2019t witness. The confusion seems to stem from a\u00a0Page Six<\/a> report from the day before the book was released, and a subsequent\u00a0Daily Mail<\/em><\/a> graphic that recreated them onto an iPhone to illustrate the story.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s clear that Harry is unveiling the details of private conversations, which has been the main driver of criticism against him. Now, conversation about the bridesmaid incident is growing exponentially. We even got some input from\u00a0Ajay Mirpuri,<\/strong> the tailor on standby to alter the dresses, who told the\u00a0Daily Mail<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that he didn\u2019t see a fight but did fix all six dresses. Obviously, thrumming underneath the outcry about certain segments of the book is a real frustration that we\u2019re litigating all of this again. Let\u2019s call this \u201cbridesmaid-incident fatigue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s understandable to feel tired of this by now. It all happened a long time ago, and Meghan and Harry will be celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary in May. The world didn\u2019t first hear hints about the incident until six months after their wedding, and\u00a0Vanity Fair<\/em>\u2019<\/a>s first article about the controversy ran over 1,500 days ago, in November 2018. In his interview with ITV\u2019s\u00a0Tom Bradby<\/strong>\u00a0earlier this month, Harry had a fairly straightforward reason for rehashing it again. \u201cThere\u2019s been over 25 versions of that story now,\u201d he said, but for years, they weren\u2019t disputed by the palace. \u201cMy understanding is the reason they didn\u2019t want to come out and say it wasn\u2019t true would therefore lead to, Well, if it wasn\u2019t that, was it the other way round? When, in fact, you didn\u2019t need to confess that it was the other way round.\u201d<\/p>\n In the book, Harry expands on his motivations for sharing the story, and based on his explanation, there\u2019s a case to be made that the bridesmaids incident is actually the crucial moment for understanding why Harry is so angry at his family, specifically William,\u00a0King Charles III,<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Queen Consort Camilla.<\/strong> It\u2019s less about the substance of the incident itself\u2014of course, it\u2019s not at all vital to know about Charlotte\u2019s original reaction to the dress\u2014but about who knew it happened and how it got out.<\/p>\n In\u00a0Spare,<\/em>\u00a0Harry first tells the story of the initial conversation, then says that later he \u201carrived home and found Meg on the floor sobbing,\u201d adding that Kate visited the next day \u201cwith flowers and a card that said she was sorry.\u201d He returns to the event later, after the original story that mentioned it ran in\u00a0The Telegraph<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0Harry writes that Meghan hadn\u2019t read the story but she did hear about it, and it upset her that the story claimed that she made Kate cry when the opposite was true. \u201cAs long as I live,\u201d he writes, \u201cI\u2019ll never forget the tone of her voice as she looked me in the eye and said:\u00a0Haz, I made her cry? I made HER cry?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n