Royal Butler Contradicts Prince Harry's Stories About Charles and Camilla

King Charles III’s former butler does not recall any issues with Queen Camilla within the royal family — despite what Prince Harry wrote in Spare.

Grant Harrold’s upcoming book, The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life of Royal Service, offers royal family fans insight into his seven years working for “a very gentle” Charles. When Harrold’s employment started, Charles, 76, and Camilla, 78, were still living apart, although they spent a lot of time together.

“There was no police protection or anything. I remember one time turning up at [her house] at night — he asked me to take something to her,” he wrote, per an excerpt published via The Telegraph on Monday, August 18. “I remember getting there and she opened the window upstairs and looked down and went, ‘Who’s there?!’ I went, ‘It’s Grant!’ She said, ‘Grant, what the hell are you doing here at this time?’”

Harrold had to deliver something to Camilla, but she was apparently “trying to offer me tea” at nearly 10 p.m.

Prince Harry’s Ups and Downs With Stepmom Queen Camilla

Charles and Camilla reportedly kicked off their affair in 1986, when he was still married to Princess Diana. After Charles and Diana divorced in 1996, he and Camilla waited nearly a decade before tying the knot. Charles was the “happiest” Harrold had ever seen him on their April 2005 wedding day.

John Nacion/Getty Images

“At the end of the festivities, Charles and Camilla were catching a flight to head straight to Birkhall [on the Balmoral estate],” Harrold wrote. “We all went outside to wave them off and laughed as we saw William and Harry had decorated their car with ‘Just Married.’ As they drove off through the arches to cheers, the boys raced after the car.”

Harrold’s account of Prince William, 43, and Harry’s feelings about the nuptials is quite different from the Duke of Sussex’s, it seems.

Harry, 40, wrote in 2023’s Spare that he had “complex feelings” about Camilla marrying into the royal family, as did William.

Chris Jackson/Getty Images

“’We support you,’ we said. ‘We endorse Camilla,’ we said. ‘Just please don’t marry her. Just be together, Pa.’ He didn’t answer. But she answered. Straight away,” Harry claimed in his memoir. “Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game, a campaign aimed at marriage and eventually the Crown (with Pa’s blessing, we presumed).”

Prince Harry and King Charles III's Ups and Downs Through the Years

Harrold also claimed that Harry, William, Charles and Camilla “got on so well,” which is why Harry’s account of their family rift has been confusing to the former butler.

When discussing Charles, specifically, Harrold referred to his former boss as “very calm” and the now-king “didn’t once raise his voice” while they worked together.

“He works hard and he doesn’t suffer fools. He gets on with everyone,” Harrold wrote. “He does get perceived as out of touch and he’s not.”

The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life of Royal Service is set to be released next month.