Whoopi Goldberg believes Prince Harry and his estranged brother, Prince William, could eventually put their differences aside and reach a peaceful reconciliation.
The actress and television host said she feels the Duke of Sussex is sincere about wanting to rebuild relationships with his family, following his candid comments in a new interview with GQ.
Speaking about the interview on The View, Goldberg questioned whether Harry’s decision to discuss the family rift publicly would actually help repair relations. However, she acknowledged that he appears determined to try.
Co-host Sara Haines said she hoped the brothers could one day find common ground, suggesting that their late mother, Princess Diana, remains a powerful presence in their relationship.
Goldberg went further, offering her view that the long-running conflict between the two brothers may ultimately come to an end.
“I think it’ll happen,” she said.
Addressing the broader dispute within the royal family, Goldberg suggested that tensions intensified after Harry and Meghan Markle began speaking openly about their experiences and disagreements.
She added that she was unsure whether the GQ interview would be enough to repair the fractured relationships, but said she believed Harry genuinely wanted to make amends.
Sunny Hostin then pointed to Goldberg’s personal relationship with the Duke of Sussex as an important reason for taking her assessment seriously.
“I don’t know Harry. I know Whoopi does and has a relationship with him. I hope they do work it out,” Hostin said.
Whoopi Goldberg believes Prince Harry and Prince William could eventually reconcile
Prince Harry and Prince William appeared close as they stood with Kate Middleton in 2017, before their relationship became the subject of a bitter and highly public family dispute
Hostin also said the warm reception Harry and Meghan received in Nottingham suggested that the couple still retain significant support in the UK.
She highlighted the women of colour who gathered to welcome and embrace Meghan during the Duchess’s first public engagement in Britain for some time.
Hostin, who has previously accused the UK of subjecting Meghan to “abject racism,” praised the response to the Sussexes during their unofficial royal-style appearances in the East Midlands.
In her view, the positive reception marked a hopeful change after years of criticism directed at Meghan following the couple’s decision to step back from royal duties.
“I was really pleased with the reception they received when they went to Nottingham,” Hostin said. “You had women of colour hugging Meghan and welcoming her back after she had received so much bad press.”
“I think this is actually a step in the right direction,” she added.
Hostin also argued that spending more time in the UK could benefit Harry and Meghan, while potentially giving the Duke of Sussex a chance to reconnect with his wider family.
“A first step is that they’ve moved back to the UK. Now his children and their children will have the opportunity to be closer to family and to the culture,” she said, adding that Harry had indicated this was something the couple wanted.
After Harry said in an interview with GQ that he wanted to reconcile with his family, Hostin added: ‘I suspect one of the reasons why he is publicly saying that he wants to reconcile is so that they hear it.
‘I hope they do work it out because the world feels like it’s on fire. And what better time to be able to cleave to your family and your loved ones than now?’
American commentator Sunny Hostin hailed the number of ‘women of colour’ were there to greet and embrace the former Suits star in her first British public engagement
Recent YouGov polling puts Prince Harry and Meghan’s favourability with the British public at just 33% and 22% respectively.
Speaking to GQ in an interview published on Tuesday, Harry insisted he had not abandoned hope of a reconciliation with his brother and father.
‘I want it to work out. Of course I do,’ he said, while suggesting that ‘some people don’t want it to work out’.
The prince described reconciliation as ‘the key point’ amid wider turmoil in the world and acknowledged that he ‘grieves’ the loss of his relationship with William.
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His intervention, which did not include an apology to his family, came a week after the Sussexes made their first public appearance together in the UK.
The Duke of Sussex repeatedly put a protective arm around his wife as they were cheered by crowds and stopped for selfies.
Meghan kissed one well-wisher and hugged several others.
When a supporter welcomed her back to the UK, Meghan smiled and replied: ‘It’s wonderful to be back.’
Their royal-style charity engagements in the East Midlands, just six weeks after returning to live in Britain, came after the King described the Sussexes as ‘private citizens’.
Critics have called the visits, organised by Team Sussex, a ‘cynical’ attempt to return to royal duties ‘by stealth’.
The View co-host Ana Navarro said Harry had been told to stop airing his family grievances in public and must privately call his estranged brother Prince William if he genuinely wants to repair their shattered relationship.
She said any meaningful attempt to rebuild trust needed to happen behind closed doors.
‘I think that a lot of the problem has been exacerbated by the fact that it’s been played out in public,’ she said.
‘So much of the dirty laundry has been aired out in public. And surely they have relatives in common, friends in common.’
She suggested Harry could achieve far more by communicating directly with William rather than repeatedly discussing their estrangement in the media.
‘I just think that if he delivered that message privately right now it might go further than continuing to do it publicly because there’s been a breach of trust and there’s been a lot of hurt, I think, on both sides.’
Navarro then took aim at the very public nature of Harry’s complaints about the monarchy, including the lucrative media projects that have exposed some of the Royal Family’s most intimate disagreements.
‘It needs to be dealt with privately, not with interviews and tell-all books and selling documentaries and things like that,’ she declared.
‘You know, at some point he’s going to need to pick up the phone or go see his brother and have it out.’
Prince Harry conducted a 42-minute interview with GQ magazine on Tuesday
Fellow panellist Alyssa Farah Griffin suggested King Charles’s health could be weighing on Harry’s mind, particularly as the family confronts the passage of time.
‘We have limited time with our loved ones on Earth,’ she observed, suggesting Harry might be realising that ‘time is the one commodity we can never get back’.
Sara Haines also appealed for reconciliation, invoking the brothers’ late mother, Princess Diana, and the extraordinary bond her sons shared during their childhood.
‘That love of their mother was shared only between those two boys,’ she said, adding that she hoped to see ‘a peaceful reconciliation at some point’.
The royal brothers’ bitter estrangement has dominated headlines for years, particularly since Harry and Meghan’s bombshell 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
During the interview, Meghan alleged that an unnamed member of the Royal Family had raised concerns about the skin colour of their son Archie before his birth.
She also revealed that she had experienced suicidal thoughts while struggling with life inside the monarchy.
Further revelations followed in the Sussexes’ 2022 Netflix documentary, Harry & Meghan, before Harry unleashed another series of extraordinary allegations in his 2023 memoir, Spare.
In the book, Harry described William as his ‘archnemesis’ and alleged that his older brother had physically attacked him during a heated confrontation.
Those claims thrust the brothers’ private tensions further into the international spotlight and intensified speculation over whether their relationship could ever recover.
