According to a royal expert, Prince Harry and Prince William will never be as close as they once were.

Angela Levin, a royal expert and author, told Us Weekly exclusively on Tuesday, March 16, that Prince Harry and Prince William will never have the same connection as before.

“I don't think they could ever have the same closeness that they had before,” Levin said, adding that while the brothers' current situation is awkward, they might be able to mend their relationship when Harry, 36, returns to the United Kingdom this summer to unveil a memorial in honor of their late mother, Princess Diana.

“Prince Harry told me that because of their unique experience of losing a mother, William was the only person he could really trust and the only person he could say anything to,” Levin, who interviewed Harry extensively for her 2018 book Harry: A Biography of a Prince, said. “Despite their very different personalities, they have a lot in common. However, I assume it has gone too far.”

For a long time, the siblings' bond has been strained.

The split started in 2016 when the Duke of Cambridge, 38, expressed concern about how fast his younger brother's relationship with his now-wife Meghan Markle was progressing, according to Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie's book Finding Freedom.

In an October 2019 ITV documentary, Harry confirmed the brothers' feud, admitting that they were “certainly on different paths at the moment.”

According to royal expert Katie Nicholl of ET, the princes spoke via video call in January to try to mend their relationship. Even so, things worsened further after Harry and his 39-year-old wife gave a candid CBS interview on March 7 in which the couple made some damaging remarks about the royal family.

On CBS This Morning earlier on Tuesday, Gayle King announced that Harry had made contact with his older brother for the first time since the sit-down aired.

Although Levin told Us that the conversation was private, she said William is upset about comments made in the interview about his wife, Duchess Kate. The elder prince is also harmed by the allegation that he is racist, despite the fact that the couple did not mention his name.

“He, like Prince Charles, is out there with a dark cloud hanging over him,” the journalist said. “I mean, if you make an accusation like that, which is really heinous, to say that someone in the royal family is [racist], they can't really respond to it. They won't be able to because of their positions.” During a visit to a London school on Thursday, March 11, William did tell a Sky News reporter, “We're very much not a racist family.”

In a primetime interview, Harry and Meghan admitted that racism played a significant role in their decision to leave the royal family as working members in 2020.

When she was pregnant with the couple's 22-month-old son, Archie, the former Suits actress, who is biracial, said there were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born” inside the royal family.

Following the CBS interview, Buckingham Palace issued a statement on March 9 saying that the allegations “are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”