In the glittering yet fractured world of the British royal family, few rivalries have captured the public’s imagination quite like the ongoing feud between Prince William and Prince Harry. Once inseparable brothers bound by shared tragedy and royal duty, their relationship has devolved into a public spectacle of betrayal, accusations, and petty barbs. But perhaps no moment encapsulates the depths of their discord more than Harry’s infamous mockery of William’s hair loss in his 2023 memoir, *Spare*. With a smug certainty and a dash of derision, Harry painted his elder brother as a fading figure, his “alarming baldness” a symbol of lost vitality and diminishing resemblance to their beloved mother, Princess Diana. Yet, as the years have unfolded, fate—or karma, as some might call it—has delivered a poetic twist. Fast-forward to 2026, and it’s Harry himself who stares back from mirrors and paparazzi lenses with a rapidly receding hairline, a balding crown that mocks his past arrogance. This isn’t just a case of male-pattern baldness; it’s a humiliating reckoning for a man who built his post-royal brand on victimhood and finger-pointing, only to find the finger now pointed squarely at his own thinning scalp.
Let’s rewind to the source of this follicular fiasco. In *Spare*, Harry recounts a poignant yet poisonous encounter with William and their father, then-Prince Charles, during the funeral of Prince Philip in 2021. As Harry describes it, he gazed upon his brother “perhaps for the first time since we were little,” taking in every detail: “his familiar scowl, which had always been the norm in his dealings with me; his alarming baldness, more advanced than mine; his famous resemblance to Mummy, which was fading with time.” The words drip with condescension, reducing William— the future King of England—to a balding has-been whose physical decline mirrors an emotional one. Harry didn’t stop there; he doubled down in interviews, defending the jab as mere observation rather than a “cutting” remark. During a sit-down with Anderson Cooper for *60 Minutes*, when pressed on the cruelty of highlighting William’s hair loss, Harry shrugged it off: “None of anything I’ve written, anything that I’ve included is ever intended to hurt my family.” But intent or not, the damage was done. The world saw it for what it was: a low blow from a brother who had already aired the family’s dirty laundry in Oprah interviews, Netflix documentaries, and endless tabloid leaks.
At the time, Harry’s confidence in his own luscious locks was palpable. He was the younger, the “spare,” but also the one seemingly spared from the Windsor family’s notorious baldness gene—a trait that has plagued royals from King George VI to Prince Philip and now William. Harry even wove hair into other anecdotes, like the beard dispute before his wedding to Meghan Markle, where William allegedly ordered him to shave as the “heir” speaking to the “spare.” It was as if Harry positioned himself as the eternally youthful foil to William’s aging heir, using physical appearance as a weapon in their psychological warfare. Critics decried it as immature and vindictive, a sign of Harry’s deep-seated resentment bubbling over into petty insults. Royal watchers and the public alike recoiled at the hypocrisy: here was a man preaching mental health and compassion, yet gleefully exploiting his brother’s insecurities for book sales and sympathy points.
Oh, how the tables have turned. By 2025 and into 2026, the narrative has flipped with delicious irony. Recent photographs and public appearances reveal Prince Harry’s once-fiery red mane thinning dramatically, particularly at the crown, exposing a bald spot that’s grown “alarmingly” visible—echoing the very adjective he hurled at William. At the Invictus Games in February 2025, overhead shots captured the extent of his hair loss, sparking a torrent of online commentary. Social media users didn’t hold back, with one X post dubbing him “scrotum head” and “pube thatch” in reference to his failed attempts to combat the inevitable. Even Harry’s arrival at the Royal Courts of Justice in London in January 2026 for his ongoing lawsuit against Associated Newspapers laid bare the truth: from behind, his scalp gleamed under the lights, prompting quips like “Did Harry leave his hair in Montecito?”
Insiders paint a picture of desperation behind the scenes. Reports suggest Harry has undergone not one, but two hair transplants, both of which have reportedly failed, leaving him with patchy results that only accentuate the problem. He’s turned to treatments like finasteride and minoxidil, battling side effects such as headaches and mood swings in a futile bid to outrun genetics. Meghan Markle, ever the image-conscious partner, is said to be particularly obsessed with controlling the narrative around his appearance. Sources claim she insists on vetting every photo of Harry before publication to ensure his bald patch remains hidden, a level of micromanagement that speaks volumes about their “obsession with image control.” One insider even whispered that Meghan fears Harry’s growing resemblance to William might make it look like she’s “sleeping with” the wrong brother—a crass but telling anxiety in their Montecito bubble.
Harry himself has tried to laugh it off, a stark contrast to the mockery he dished out. At the WellChild Awards in September 2025, he quipped, “Before the beard, I had hair, you know what it is like,” acknowledging his transformation since becoming the charity’s patron in 2007. During a World Series outing in November 2025, he donned an L.A. Dodgers hat amid “hat-gate” controversy, later joking that it was partly to shield his “ever-increasing bald spot” from the floodlights. But these self-deprecating moments ring hollow against the backdrop of his past cruelty. Where was this humility when he was eviscerating William in print? Instead, Harry’s jabs contributed to a family rift that shows no signs of healing, with William maintaining dignified silence amid personal trials like his wife’s and father’s cancer battles.
This saga is more than tabloid fodder; it’s a cautionary tale about the perils of hubris. Prince Harry, in his quest to “spare” no one but himself, forgot the ancient wisdom that what goes around comes around. His mockery of William’s baldness wasn’t just a fleeting insult—it was a symptom of deeper bitterness, a willingness to weaponize vulnerability for personal gain. Now, as Harry’s own hairline retreats faster than his royal relevance, karma has delivered its verdict. The “spare” who once mocked the “heir” finds himself heir to the same fate, a balding prince in self-imposed exile, haunted by the echoes of his own words. If only he had remembered: in the game of thrones—and follicles—pride cometh before the fall. Perhaps it’s time for Harry to look in the mirror, not just at his scalp, but at the man staring back, and finally practice the compassion he so often preaches.
