‘Chelsy and Kate got on really well': Ex-butler Grant Harrold's brutal swipe at Meghan Markle
Former palace staffer Grant Harrold served as a butler to King Charles from 2004 until 2011, and knew both Princes William and Harry as well as Catherine.
In a new interview with The Telegraph, the ex-staffer revealed how the brothers and Kate were 'a little gang' with Harry often spending time with Middleton when William was away.
'They involved him. He used to go out with Kate,' he said on Monday.
'William would be away and Kate and Harry would be off doing stuff together.
'They'd go shopping together, they'd go to pubs together. (…) I think when people say 'oh he was left out', he really wasn't.'
It was during this period that Harry dated Zimbabwe-born society beauty Chelsy Davy, who Mr Harrold claimed had the seal of approval from Kate as a possible sister-in-law.
'Chelsy was always around. And Chelsy and Kate got on really well,' he said.
'(William and Harry) used to go around being silly with each other and winding each other up, jumping out at their dad from corners and making him laugh.
'It was just like a family.'
Ms Davy and Prince Harry dated on and off for a period of about seven years between 2004 and 2011 and was at one point tipped to become the Duchess of Sussex.
The romance was Prince Harry's most significant relationship before he met his now-wife Meghan Markle in 2016.
Harry also dated socialite Cressida Bonas, a friend of his cousin Princess Eugenie, but the romance fizzled out the year he cross paths with the newly divorced Markle.
According to aristocrat and biographer Lady Colin Campbell, Harry's previous relationships before Markle broke down because Bonas and Davy were uninterested in royal life.
'Harry had one or two really nice girlfriends,' she told Best magazine's Suddenly Single podcast in April.
'He had wonderful taste in girls, the problem is after a point when the excitement of being with a prince and the possibility of being a royal duchess has worn thin it had no appeal.'
In the end, Harry wed Markle at St George's Chapel in 2018 with both his ex-girlfriends in attendance.
The Sussexes would ultimately stay in the royal family less than 18 months before abandoning royal duties and starting new lives in California.
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