In a palace plot twist that makes The Crown look like a bedtime story, a bombshell new tell-all has ripped the Band-Aid off the ugliest scar in the House of Windsor: Prince Harry’s alleged “near-fling” with Kate Middleton during her infamous 2007 breakup with Prince William. The revelation, dropped like a grenade in former royal butler Grant Harrold’s memoir The Royal Butler, has insiders whispering that this long-buried romantic tension – not just Meghan Markle’s “baby brain” jabs or Spare’s sibling scorched-earth – is the real poison pill behind the princes’ epic estrangement. At 41 and 43, Harry and Kate were once the Firm’s golden duo, laughing through awkward double dates and finishing each other’s sentences. But William, now 43 and heir apparent, allegedly seethed with jealousy over his brother’s effortless chemistry with his girl, planting a seed of resentment that’s bloomed into today’s full-blown family frost.

The saga slinks back to April 2007, when William and Kate – fresh-faced uni sweethearts who’d weathered “Waity Katie” taunts and Jigsaw jeans – hit pause on their fairy-tale romance after five years. The split, splashed across tabloids like confetti at a shotgun wedding, was chalked up to “different paths”: William, 24 and knee-deep in Sandhurst military training, craving space; Kate, 25 and strutting catwalks for her parents’ Party Pieces empire, dodging dowager snubs. But behind the headlines? A spark that nearly rewired the royal bloodline. Harrold, who served King Charles (then Prince of Wales) from 2005 to 2013 and witnessed the Windsors’ wilder whims, spills in his book: “They got on so well. I remember, when Prince William and Kate separated – you know, Prince Harry and Kate got on so well that I even thought that maybe Harry and she would get together. It was like watching two peas in a pod – easy, fun, no pressure. Kate lit up around Harry in a way that was… noticeable.”

Noticeable? Try nuclear. Palace sources, speaking to RadarOnline on condition of anonymity (because spilling Windsor tea without a trust fund is career suicide), paint a picture of stolen glances and late-night laughs that had courtiers clutching pearls. Harry, the 22-year-old party prince fresh off African gap-year glow-ups and bare-knuckle army antics, was Kate’s perfect rebound: charming without the heir’s baggage, adventurous sans the throne’s tiara. “They’d sneak off for pub crawls in the Cotswolds or binge The Office at Highgrove, just the two of them,” one ex-aide confided. “William was away drilling, and Harry was there – listening, teasing, making her forget the ‘future queen’ weight. It was innocent… mostly. A near-fling, for sure. Kisses? Maybe. More? Who knows. But the chemistry? Electric.” William, reportedly tipped off by a “concerned” staffer during a training furlough, exploded: “He’s my brother – and she’s mine,” he allegedly snarled, per a source close to the then-couple. The reconciliation with Kate came swift – a Jigsaw fashion show “ambush” in June – but the trust? Shattered like a Ming vase under a polo mallet.

Fast-forward 18 years, and that 2007 what-if has metastasized into the brothers’ Bermuda Triangle of bad blood. Insiders insist William’s “lingering jealousy” – a toxic cocktail of sibling rivalry and spotlight theft – simmered through Harry’s Vegas Vegas nights and African AIDS ambassadorships, only to boil over post-Meghan. “William’s always seen Harry as the fun one, the spare who steals the show,” a former palace insider told the Daily Mail. “Kate and Harry’s bond? It made him feel sidelined, like even his fiancée preferred the ginger’s glow. That seed of doubt never died – it’s why he’s so guarded now, why every olive branch from Montecito gets torched.” Harrold’s memoir, excerpted in The Mirror last week, reignited the embers: “William was possessive from the jump. He’d joke about it – ‘Don’t get too cozy with my girl, Haz’ – but his eyes said otherwise. The near-fling rumors? They stung because they weren’t entirely rumors.”

The fallout? A rift wider than the Atlantic Harry fled across. By 2018, as Harry and Meghan’s wedding bells clanged, William reportedly confronted his brother in a “blazing row” at Kensington Palace: “You’re trying to eclipse us – just like with Kate,” per Spare’s veiled echoes. Harry’s memoir, that 2023 gut-punch bible, doubled down with barbs at Kate – her “baby brain” slight, the bridesmaid dress meltdown – but sources say the real subtext was payback for William’s “Kate jealousy” jabs during tense family summits. “Harry adored Kate – still does,” a Sussex sympathizer told Us Weekly. “She was the sister he never had, the one who’d sneak him biscuits during diets. Losing that? It’s the quiet casualty of Megxit. William’s possessiveness poisoned it all.” Post-2020 Sussex schism, Harry’s Invictus jaunts to the UK – like his frosty 2024 coronation cameo – end with Kate’s “warm texts” going unanswered by William, who reportedly vetoes any “Fab Four” photo ops: “Not while he’s still mooning over my wife.”

Social media’s a circus of coronets and conspiracy. #HarryKateFling trended with 2.1 million posts by Sunday, from TikTok deepfakes of a ginger-Kate rom-com trailer (“The Spare and the Heir-ess”) to Reddit rants dissecting Harrold’s “pod” quip as code for “canoodling.” Monarchists clutch vapors: “Blasphemy! Kate’s the rock!” while republicans cackle: “Wills was always the jealous type – explains the bald jokes in Spare.” Even across the pond, Meghan’s Montecito moguls murmur: “Harry’s moved on, but William? Stuck in 2007.” Kate, the eternal diplomat who brokered that 2021 Philip funeral walk-and-talk (dropping back so the bros could bicker), reportedly urged Harry last month: “Come alone – rebuild without the drama,” per Heat magazine. But William? Stonewall city: “Jealousy’s his armor now. Won’t drop it till Harry swears off the spotlight.”

For the Windsors, it’s a tragedy in tweed: two princes who once shared bunk beds and bunkers, now sundered by a sister-in-law’s smile. Harrold, sipping tea in his post-butler bliss, muses in his book: “Kate and Harry might have worked – easy, joyful. But fate picked William. And jealousy picked the pieces.” As Charles convalesces and Andrew’s exiled to Mayfair’s cold shoulder, this “near-fling” ghost haunts the halls: the real reason reconciliation feels like a relic. Harry pines for the pod; William guards his princess; Kate? She just wants her brother-in-law back for Christmas crackers. In the end, the bitter rift isn’t about tiaras or tantrums – it’s about a stolen spark from 2007 that neither prince can extinguish. Will Wills thaw? Or is the spare forever spared? The throne waits, but the tea? It’s scalding.