Prince Harry is approaching Princess Diana's old friends to participate in a television film about his late mother, a veteran royal correspondent claims, a move that could deepen the rift with Prince William over who owns Diana's legacy.
Richard Kay, the Daily Mail's senior editor-at-large and a journalist who knew Diana personally, made the disclosure on the outlet's Palace Confidential show. Kay said Harry has been reaching out to people from his mother's circle since returning to Britain, and that the project will consume much of his attention over the coming year.
The timing is hard to miss. Next year marks the 30th anniversary of Diana's death in a Paris car crash, and a string of commemorative events and tributes is already taking shape. Earl Spencer, Diana's brother, has written a new memoir about his sister set for release this month. Harry, Meghan, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet, stayed with the Spencer family at Althorp, Diana's ancestral estate, in July.
Kay did not name his source, saying only, "I am told." No confirmation or denial from Harry or his representatives has surfaced.
What makes the claim more than gossip-column filler is Kay's broader argument about what Harry is doing with his mother's memory. On the show, Kay laid out what he described as a deliberate strategy:
"I am told that one of the reasons Harry's here is to make a television film, his own film, about his mother. I know he has been reaching out to his friends and others who knew her, asking them to contribute. That's going to occupy a lot of his headspace over the next 12 months."
Kay went further, framing the alleged project as part of a pattern. He argued that Harry has tried to claim Diana's legacy for himself, to Prince William's "intense frustration," and that the Diana connection has become a tool for separating his public identity from the House of Windsor.
Kay put it bluntly on the show:
"This issue of trying to use Diana, the Spencer brand, the Spencer name, to divide himself away from the House of Windsor, I think is something we're going to see even more of."
He pointed to Harry's July visit to Althorp as evidence. "Let's not forget who Harry spent time with when he was here in July, it was Diana's family at Althorp," Kay said. The Sussexes brought their children to the Spencer estate, a detail that underscores how closely Harry has aligned himself with his mother's side of the family while his relationship with William remains frozen.
The brothers have reportedly not spoken for the best part of four years. Their last public appearance together was at King Charles's Coronation in May 2023. Kay described the documentaries they made together nine years ago, marking the 20th anniversary of Diana's death, as "the last time they were really in step together."
That shared project now looks like a relic. A royal author has previously noted that the brothers' vow to honor Diana together appears broken. If Kay's reporting is accurate, Harry is now moving ahead on his own terms, without his brother's involvement or blessing.
Kay acknowledged the sensitivity. "Diana has dominated the thinking of both William and Harry for the last ten years," he said. But he added a pointed correction to the public narrative that casts Harry as Diana's sole heir in spirit: "People always link Harry to Diana, but she was the mother of two boys. William is just as much his mother's son as Harry is."
Richard Eden, the Daily Mail's diary editor and a fellow Palace Confidential contributor, offered a window into how William and Catherine intend to handle the Sussexes' move back to Britain. Eden said friends of the couple have made their position clear: the Sussexes are now private citizens, and their location should not change anything.
Eden relayed the friends' stance on the show:
"Friends of theirs say: why should they do anything differently? They are two people who are now private citizens, not working royals. It should make no difference whether they are in California or Britain."
Eden then offered his own advice to the future king and queen, urging firmness. "You have got to be firm with them, or it will lead, I think, to the end of the monarchy," he said. It was a striking claim, that accommodating the Sussexes' return poses an institutional risk to the Crown itself.
Harry's recent visit to Diana's ancestral home and his public charity appearances in Britain have already drawn attention. The question now is whether a solo Diana film project would escalate tensions or simply confirm what many observers already suspect: that the brothers are operating on separate tracks with no reconciliation in sight.
Separate reporting adds another dimension. Alison Boshoff, a Daily Mail editor-at-large, reported this week that the Sussexes are searching for a home in the Cotswolds, the picturesque region of rural England. Among the features on their wish list: a film studio.
That detail, if accurate, suggests the Diana project may be part of a larger production ambition, not a one-off tribute but a foundation for ongoing content work from British soil. Harry and Meghan already have experience in the entertainment space. They signed a multiyear content deal with Netflix in 2020, and Fox News reported that the couple acquired the rights to Carley Fortune's bestselling romance novel "Meet Me at the Lake" for a Netflix feature film under their Archewell production banner.
That novel's themes, including the loss of a parent in a car crash, drew immediate parallels to Harry's own life. The New York Post reported the screen rights cost an estimated $4 million. The book spent six weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list.
A dedicated Diana film, produced from a home studio in the English countryside, would represent something different from the Archewell fiction slate. It would be personal, and it would place Harry at the center of a narrative about his mother's life, one told without William's participation and potentially without the royal family's cooperation.
Charles Spencer's forthcoming memoir about Diana adds yet another layer. Spencer has publicly honored his sister's memory on past anniversaries, and his new book promises to address what he has called "untruths" about Diana's life. Whether Spencer's account and Harry's alleged film will complement each other or compete for the same audience remains an open question.
Kay's claims, while specific in outline, leave significant gaps. He did not identify which of Diana's friends Harry has contacted, whether any have agreed to participate, or what format the project would take. No distributor, working title, or production timeline has been named. Harry himself has made no public statement about the alleged film.
It is also unclear how a Diana film would interact with Harry's existing Netflix arrangement, or whether it would be produced independently. The Sussexes' broader return to Britain, its duration, its terms, and its effect on their relationship with the working royals, remains largely undefined in public.
What is clear is the pattern. Harry has spent years building a public identity rooted in his mother's story, through interviews, a memoir, and now, allegedly, a film. William has largely declined to engage on those terms. The 30th anniversary of Diana's death will arrive whether the brothers are speaking or not. If Kay is right, Harry plans to mark it his way, on his schedule, with his version of events.
A family that cannot agree on how to honor its own mother is unlikely to agree on much else. That may be the real legacy Harry is building.
