The much-hyped reunion of Oasis rock stars Noel and Liam Gallagher has sparked calls for an even more prominent pair of estranged brothers to “get the band back together”.
While the Manchester musicians would be playing for money, Princes William and Harry would be performing together on the world stage for the good of the monarchy – or so the argument goes.
However, those calling for King Charles’s children to use the Gallaghers as a model for fraternal reconciliation have conveniently overlooked two key factors that have been emphasised to me during conversations over the past week with royal courtiers and friends.
Firstly, the rapprochement with the Gallaghers is said to have been agreed solely due to Noel’s split from his second wife, Sara MacDonald. The PR executive was thought to have prevented any Oasis reunion. She and the irascible Liam had repeatedly clashed over the years, with Liam even comparing her and her brother, at one point, to “Fred and Rose West”.
Prince William, right, has refused to engage in a verbal spat with his brother Harry.
Noel Gallagher, left, traded public insults with his brother Liam for years.
Instead, Harry remains happily married to Meghan. While the former American actress has not compared William and the Princess of Wales to serial killers, she has publicly claimed that Catherine made her cry and has accused unnamed members of the royal family of being racist. The accused were later identified by Meghan’s entertainer, Omid Scobie, as Catherine and the king.
The second factor that is overlooked is that Noel publicly traded insults with his brother for years, calling him, for example, “the angriest man you’ll ever meet.” Noel added of the singer: “He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
William, on the other hand, like his wife, has refused to be drawn into a verbal spat with his brother that would be unbecoming of a future king. We have only caught glimpses of his anger at the insults he has been subjected to from across the Atlantic.
Who can forget the Prince of Wales’ forceful declaration: “We are absolutely not a racist family,” when a journalist shouted a question at him at his first public engagement following Harry and Meghan’s explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021?
At one point Liam compared Noel and his wife Sara MacDonald to Fred and Rose West.
Unlike Noel and Sara MacDonald, Harry and Meghan are still happily married
Harry’s attendance at the memorial service in Norfolk for his uncle Lord (Robert) Fellowes last week, who died in July aged 82, was the first time he had been at the same event as his brother since 2022. They then took part in an awkward outing in Windsor with their wives following the death of their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth.
Although fellow mourners said the brothers did not speak to each other at St Mary’s Church in Snettisham, their attendance has sparked speculation about a reconciliation between the pair.
However, none of the friends or courtiers I spoke to this week thought that would happen, at least not in the near future.
As his wife undergoes cancer treatment, a friend of William’s says there’s one family member the prince is eager to see return to public engagements — and it’s not Harry.
“There will be no meeting until Harry and Meghan apologise to Their Royal Highnesses for everything they have said,” a former courtier told me. “And there is no sign of that happening.”
A friend of the royal family told me: “It’s hard to imagine a reconciliation. How could there be one when William and Catherine have a justified fear that anything they say could appear in a future book or be repeated on a television programme?”
Referring to Catherine, who has been undergoing treatment for an unidentified form of cancer, a friend of William’s told me: “There is one member of the family William is keen to see return to public engagements, and it’s not Harry.”
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