HOT NEWS: Prince William tearfully declares his departure from the royal family alongside his younger brother, citing a surprising reason that has caught the entire nation off guard.

It may feel like forever ago, but there was a time when Prince William and Prince Harry had plenty to bond over.

“William hated the press more than Harry did at one point,” author Omid Scobie told E! News in an exclusive interview discussing his new book Endgame, which unpacks the brothers’ ongoing estrangement and a variety of other issues threatening the future of the monarchy. “So for things to be at this point is not only sad, but it speaks to William as a leader, as an heir to the throne.”

And not in a particularly good way.

Since the January release of Harry’s memoir Spare, a continuation of the tea-spilling that began with his and Meghan Markle’s explosive sit-down with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021 (that continues to haunt the royal family today), Scobie said, “there still hasn’t been a conversation of any worth or substance with his own brother.”

William and Kate Middleton ignored reporters’ Endgame-related questions on the red carpet at the Royal Variety Performance on Nov. 30. And while in Dubai to attend COP28, when asked how he was doing, King Charles III reportedly answered, “I’m all right very much, just about,” quipping that he was “recovering from the shock” of turning 75.

In Spare and multiple interviews, Harry maintained that he basically wrote the book not to expose the inner workings of the royal family, but to explain to his own father and brother—who consistently rebuffed his attempts to have those talks—what he’d been dealing with personally for years before he and Meghan moved away in 2020.

“He wanted accountability from his family,” Scobie said. “The ball has been in William’s court for 11 months now. And how ridiculous, because this isn’t just the brother of a random man. This is the future king, the future head of the Church of England, who almost a year later is still unable to at least sit down and have a conversation with his own blood.”

But taken in context, that response—or lack thereof—from William isn’t so surprising. (There was no official comment from any member of the royal family in response to Harry’s recollections in Spare, though plenty of reporting ensued that they weren’t happy about it.)

There’s a “duality” to William’s character, Scobie said. “This is a man who, as I said, once hated the press more than his brother and was always—and still is—extremely professional on engagements, enjoyable to be around. He would be the one that would acknowledge you [as a member of the press] and make you feel like a person rather than just an irritant at these events.”

William “also loved his normal life as an air ambulance pilot,” the longtime royal correspondent added, “which he held onto for so long, much to the annoyance of the institution.”

Then the Duke of Cambridge, William announced he was leaving the East Anglian Air Ambulance in 2017 after two years. Kensington Palace said at the time that the heir was making the move because he and Kate were “keen to increase their official work on behalf of the Queen and for the charities and causes they support.”

The couple, now the Prince and Princess of Wales, have been full-time working royals ever since, though Kate has made it clear (through actions, if not in so many words) that she’s mom to Prince George, 10, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5, first and future queen second.

Though there was grumbling behind the scenes that William wasn’t doing enough for the crown, his time as a pilot “was the making of him,” Scobie said. “It made him a man to be admired because he didn’t have to do that. So to see him reach this point now where family isn’t the priority for him—everything is about his image, his reputation, at any cost—shows me that perhaps he’s either become a little lost in the role or allowed the role to engulf him in the way that these roles do.”

Family in this case meaning Harry, not William’s wife and children. But Scobie also writes in Endgame that, in recent years, William has been protective of the monarchy in a way that’s been surprising even to seasoned royal-watchers.

“It’s almost mirroring some of the decisions made by his own father,” Scobie said, “the things that him and Harry said they’d never do are now happening.”