Ready to bury the hatchet? Prince William and Prince Harry seemed happy to be reunited at the unveiling of a statue honoring their late mother, Princess Diana, on Thursday, July 1. Her friend Stewart Pearce weighed in on what the friendly outing means for the brothers amid their rift.
“I feel that the vibration of it has detonated the essence of peace,” the royal expert exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday. “By the behaviors that were just so easy, so formal — or informal, rather — so humorous between the two of them, I felt that that behavior would actually completely change the way that the vilification has taken place, which is really based on the fear or [ideas of] so many people with so many opinions thinking that they’ve actually been talking to individuals within the royal court. Whereas actually they’ve only just simply been making the whole thing up.”
Pearce emphasized that he did not believe that William, 39, and Harry, 36, were ever engaged in a full-on feud. “It dispels any of the brouhaha over the fact that there’s a rift,” he said of the siblings’ behavior at the ceremony. “I didn’t believe that there was a rift. There was a slight disagreement, but I mean, who doesn’t disagree with his brother? But [it’s] been blown out of complete proportion, it’s been overly dramatized. They both were so relaxed.”
Other members of the royal family — including Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Duchess Kate, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis, Meghan Markle, Archie and Lilibet — did not attend the event, which Pearce considered a good thing in the end.
“I feel that what the royal family are doing are being immensely representative of what the law of the land is all about [amid coronavirus restrictions],” he explained. “That’s one of the reasons why the queen wasn’t there and why Meghan wasn’t there. I mean, Meghan obviously is at home with the children, so that’s completely understandable, but it is interesting that Catherine wasn’t there as well. Then [it] became this very, very intimate celebration of just the two princes and select members of the Spencer entourage.”
Pearce also thought Meghan, 39, would have been a target if she attended. “If Meghan had been there, I think it would have been explosive because the British press would just simply find something derogatory to say about whether it’s to do with the fact that she was … just very easy in the experience or something to do with what she was wearing,” he told Us.
While some may have expected William and Harry to grow emotional during the viewing, the voice coach suggested that they wanted to keep the moment light while in the midst of the public eye.
“I’m sure they probably saw it several times. And that would be when all of the private emotion was being shared,” Pearce said. “Of course, if it had been a larger occasion, if there had been a little bit more pomp and circumstance, I feel that we would have actually felt the shock waves much, much more, but because it was so intimate and because they know that there is such a highly charged vibration in the British and the Australian press that they were trying to keep it really low-key. That’s where all the joviality was. They actually have a tremendous amount of fun between the two of them, which was instigated by their mother.”
Meghan remained in the United States with Archie, 2, and Lilibet, 3 weeks. Meanwhile, a source told Us that Kate, 39, “really wanted to attend, but the family as a whole decided it was best” for her to stay home with George, 7, Charlotte, 6, and Louis, 3.
The insider added that the royals — including the queen, 95, and Charles, 72 — “wanted to keep it very personal and not have many family members in attendance since that would be a takeaway from the special moment.”
With reporting by Joe Drake
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