Prince William ‘Sick With Worry’ Ahead of Oprah Interview
Prince William was described as being “literally sick with worry” in the week leading up to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Oprah Winfrey interview airing in March 2021, according to a new claim resurfacing in coverage published on May 6. The allegation focuses on the Prince of Wales’s reaction behind closed doors as the televised sit-down approached and the Royal Family prepared its response.
In the article, El-Balad.com reported that royal biographer Christopher Andersen wrote the Princess of Wales could hear her husband “retching in the bathroom” for a full week because he was too distracted to think about food as the broadcast neared.
Andersen makes the claim in his biography Kate! The Courage, Grace and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen, linking William’s anxiety to the wider fallout surrounding the interview’s allegations. During the programme, Prince Harry said there was “a lot of hurt” between him and William, while Meghan Markle said unnamed members of the Royal Family had raised “concerns” about their unborn child’s skin colour, the report said.
The interview also triggered a rapid Palace communications response, with Buckingham Palace ultimately issuing a statement that included the line: “The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. They are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.” In the years since, the Prince of Wales has been reported to have kept a distance from his brother, a dynamic previously explored when Prince William was said to be maintaining space from Prince Harry amid ongoing tensions.
While the claims rely on Andersen’s account rather than direct comment from Kensington Palace, the reporting underlines how the Oprah interview continued to reverberate inside the institution, shaping both personal relationships and the language used publicly by the Palace at a highly sensitive moment.
