Disheartening moment: Prince Harry has been open about his displeasure toward stepmother Camilla Parker Bowles, and previously confessed he and Prince William begged their father not to marry her

Heartbroken Prince Harry once accused Camilla Parker Bowles of taking King Charles away from him.

Camilla and Charles first began dating in the 1970s, and there were rumours of an affair while he was married to Princess Diana, something she later confirmed during an explosive interview in the 1990s. Two years after Diana’s tragic death in Paris, Charles and Camilla made their first public appearance as a couple, and have been inseparable ever since.

In 2005, they announced their engagement, and just a few months later tied the knot, but the wedding was shrouded in controversy as both Charles and Camilla were divorced, so they opted for a civil marriage ceremony instead. Charles’ mother the Queen was also absent from the ceremony, but later attended the religious marriage blessing.

While Prince Harry and Prince William were photographed smiling next to their newly married father on the steps of Windsor Castle, the youngest prince revealed he had strongly opposed Charles remarrying over fears he would lose his father to his new stepmother. “I knew without question that this marriage would take Pa away from us. Not in any real sense, not in any deliberate or malicious way, but nevertheless – away. He was entering a new space, a closed space, a tightly insular space,” he wrote in his memoir Spare.

The father-of-two recalled having “mixed feelings” over Camilla marrying his father, and already had a rivalry with his new stepmother, as he accused her of leaking negative stories to the press about him. Harry fumed she had “sacrificed me on her personal PR altar”, but he was forced to put his emotions to one side when he “saw Pa’s smile and it was hard to argue with that, and harder still to deny the cause.”

reportedly left Charles furious, and when the prince returned to the UK last month, the monarch was forced to choose between his son and his wife. According to GB News, insiders alleged that Harry refused to meet with his father if Camilla was there, and there was “negotiating” as to who could be in the room if he had a meeting with the King, which inevitably ended with Harry being snubbed. “I think the reason was because Harry made certain demands about who could be in the room and who couldn’t. Although on the surface it looks like a snub, Harry made it very difficult for his father,” royal commentator Charlotte Griffiths explained.