Prince William has had his fair share of exciting birthdays.
Last year he met up with Taylor Swift backstage before one of her Wembley gigs and the Grammy Award-winning singer shared a birthday message on her Instagram page.
On his 40th birthday William sold copies of the Big Issue magazine with a vendor.
The Prince is also known to enjoy a night on the town with his friends in London nightclubs.
But one of his birthdays undoubtedly stands out more than others.
In 2019 rumours started circling that Prince Harry and William had fallen out, which Harry addressed in the documentary Harry & Meghan: An African Journey.
He said: ‘Part of this role and part of this job, and this family, being under the pressure that it’s under, inevitably, you know, stuff happens.
‘But look, we’re brothers, we’ll always be brothers.’
He continued: ‘And we’re certainly on different paths at the moment, but I’ll always be there for him, as I know he’ll always be there for me.’
But this rift only intensified as time went on.
June 2019 was a particularly hard year for the brothers as Meghan and Harry announced they were leaving The Royal Foundation which the brothers had set up ten years prior to support good causes.
This separation was interpreted by many as a sign of the growing rift between the brothers.
The same month it was revealed that William and Harry had been estranged for a period with one senior royal source claiming they weren’t speaking to each other.
Royal author Robert Lacey wrote in his book Battle of Brothers: ‘The Royal Foundation seemed to embody both the legacy of Diana and the harmony of her sons in perpetuating her name.
‘It had looked as if the two married couples could carry the Royal Foundation forward into a new dimension.’
The foundation raised and paid out around £8million per year to 26 charities.
It was set up for projects based around four initial areas that were close to the royals – mental health, the armed forces, conservation and helping young people.
One of the most high-profile projects it was involved in is the Invictus Games, the bi-annual sporting event created by Prince Harry for injured military personnel, with a separate foundation created to organise it.
Other work included improving secondary education in poor areas of Uganda, where only around 25 per cent of children had access to schools.
International conservation organisation United For Wildlife is another of the foundation’s projects, set up to engage 15 to 30-year-olds in protecting the environment while raising awareness of the impact of poaching and illegal trading in parts of Africa and Asia.
But on June 20, 2019, it was announced that the assets would be divided with William and Kate taking over the existing organisation.
And the next day, on William’s 37th birthday, came the second blow.
Harry and Meghan filed a trademark for Sussex Royal, which they intended to use as their charitable foundation.
The brand was the work of the powerful Hollywood PR agency Sunshine Sachs, whose clients include Jennifer Lopez and Barbra Streisand.
Lacey wrote: ‘When she got engaged to Harry in 2017, Meghan had announced a definitive end to her showbiz career.
‘But she had retained her Hollywood “three As” – her agent, attorney and accountant – to field calls relating to the personal side of her life and she remained particularly close to Keleigh Thomas Morgan, the Sunshine Sachs representative with whom she had worked with while she was acting in Suits.
‘Keleigh lent a hand with the recruitment of faces for the Vogue special issue and when the break-up of The Royal Foundation raised the question of how Meghan and Harry’s new separate charity should be developed.
‘She was part of the discussion that led to the clever brand name of Sussex Royal, with its elegant HM monogram on dark blue surrounded by a crown.’
Meghan’s Faces For Change Vogue cover in July caused uproar, with Lacey adding that ‘William was particularly disturbed’.
The royal author said: ‘Many of the papers had identified Meghan’s proclaimed refusal to be ‘boastful’ by appearing on the front of her issue as a not-so-sly put-down to Kate, whose face had featured on the cover of her own Vogue a few years earlier.
‘But William’s concern went much deeper. Every paper had emphasised the need for royals to stay clear of controversy.
‘The project had been “driven by a desire”, as the foundation put it, “to make a difference together”.
‘”Together” was the operative word.
‘William did not see his future role as monarch – nor his current role as heir – as a matter of him working to maintain the nation’s feelings in harmony while his activist brother and wife jumped up and down beside him cultivating political and cultural divisions in pursuit of their trendy vision of doing good.’
At the time, writing in Harper’s Bazaar, royal commentator Omid Scobie said that Harry and Meghan were looking forward to ‘stamping their own personality’ on their charity work.
A palace source told Scobie: ‘Their operating style is very different to the Cambridges and so having their own space to think as big as they like, working on a global scale, is perfect for them.’
Royal sources denied the changes were linked to a feud – saying it was ‘largely about preparing both couples for their future roles which are obviously on divergent tracks’.
However, the Sussex Royal brand was short-lived, with the couple being forced to drop the name following their split from the Firm.
But many people believe there was discontent within the ‘Fab Four’ from the beginning.
The couples’ first-ever joint event happened on February 28, 2018, where they unveiled The Royal Foundation’s charitable vision for the future.
The event also served as the informal royal ‘working debut’ of Harry’s then-fiancée, American actress Meghan.
As the all-smiling team sat down for what would be a 22-minute joint interview, they looked out at an audience made up of invited guests, foundation supporters, beneficiaries and, of course, the worldwide media.
And although the four seemingly had all the good looks, skills and training to make the launch a success, it fell flat.
Things finished so badly that it was later decided the ‘Fab Four’ would only appear together in the context of larger group royal engagements, like Trooping the Colour.
A lot of the discord at the event seemed to take place behind the scenes, away from the glare of the TV cameras.
And although Harry and Meghan didn’t decide to leave the Royal Family until nearly two years later, many commentators now regard the Fab Four’s famous launch as an early clue that things were already going wrong.
They point out that behind the painted smiles and awkward glances, dysfunction was already bubbling under the surface – perhaps down to one member’s need to capture the limelight.
In the years which followed this split, Harry has publicly spoken about his fractured relationship with his brother on multiple occasions – not least his recent no-holds-barred BBC interview.
In his tell-all memoir Spare, Harry made some shocking accusations about his brother, stemming from his frustration at being known as the ‘spare’ to his older brother’s ‘heir’.
It seems Harry’s feelings of resentment towards his older brother have not changed.
As William celebrates his 43rd birthday, hopes of a reconciliation between the brothers seem increasingly unlikely.
But many royal observers hold on to the hope that time will be the greatest healer.
