According to reports, Prince William’s staff started “planting stories” about his brother’s mental health after Harry revealed that the two were “on different paths.”

According to the Duke of Sussex’s biographer, Omid Scobie, the campaign against Harry allegedly began after a 2019 interview.

In a new documentary on the brothers’ rivalry premiering, Scobie claims it was “no coincidence” that William’s aides at Kensington Palace launched a briefing campaign against him the day after he seemed to confirm long-standing reports of a split.

Scobie’s comments are about the fallout from Harry and Meghan’s interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby in 2019, towards the end of their South African trip.

Meghan told Mr Bradby that she felt she was “surviving, not thriving,” and that “not many” people had asked her if she was ok.

The interview made headlines across the globe, and according to Scobie, and a campaign was launched by William’s aides as a result.

Mr Scobie says that stories that William was “worried about Harry’s mental health” were planted on purpose by his staff, sowing the seeds of additional schism between the two.

“We are certainly on different paths at the moment,” the Duke of Sussex said, “but I will always be there for him, as I know he will always be there for me.”

“We don’t see each other as much as we used to, but I love him dearly, and the majority of stuff is created out of nothing. As brothers, you have good days, you have bad days.”

However, the Finding Freedom author, who is well-known as a supporter of Harry and Meghan, provided no proof that the articles had been briefed by William’s team.

“I would say that it was no coincidence that it was shortly after that aired, even the next day, there were source quotes that came from a senior aide at Kensington Palace saying that William was worried about his brother’s mental health,” Scobie said in a new ITV documentary.

“That fed off such an ugly thing for Harry and it did not go unnoticed. Now whether William directed that or not, no one will ever know, but it came from his household that he is the boss of.”

Scobie says in the documentary, Harry & William: What Went Wrong?, ‘Meghan came in driven and ready to work and that immediately ruffled feathers. She’s a woman well into her 30s: I think she’s proven to herself and the people she’s worked with up until that point that she knows what she’s doing.

‘She was certainly not someone who was going to change herself just to please the people around her. I felt they also had to be reminded: “You’re not the stars of the show here. There is a hierarchy and you don’t come very high in it.” ’

It comes in the same week that the pair was together for the first time since Prince Philip’s burial to unveil a new monument honoring their late mother Diana.

Royal biographer Robert Lacey expressed his belief that William was not pleased with Meghan’s participation in the Royal Family in the same show.

He said: “Someone close to William told me William felt from an early stage that Meghan had an agenda.”

The show is described as ‘an attempt to get to the bottom of this Royal rift’ and ‘explore allegations that many of the negative stories about Harry and Meghan were the result of briefings from within the Palace.’ Indeed, several of the sources seem to be close to the brothers.