SAN JOSE, Calif. — While Prince Harry liked to publicize having a special bond with his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, she didn’t necessarily reciprocate those feelings after he and his wife, Meghan Markle, acrimoniously left royal life in 2020, according to a new biography of the queen.

The long-reigning monarch even began to ask for another person to be present in the room with her whenever Harry called from California — especially after he and Meghan criticized the royal family in their bombshell 2021 Oprah Winfrey interview, Hugo Vickers writes in “Queen Elizabeth II: A Personal History.”

“The distress the Sussexes caused the queen in the last years of her life cannot be overestimated.” Vickers, a longtime friend of the royal family, sensationally writes in his book, according to Page Six.

And as the queen always asked for a lady-in-waiting to be present when Harry called, she’s not the only famous, internationally powerful person to become cautious about their dealings with either the Duke or Duchess of Sussex. In a recent expose on the couple’s falling out with Netflix, Variety reported that Ted Sarandos, the streaming giant’s co-CEO, also became wary about taking business calls from Meghan without a witness present — in his case a lawyer

The report said that Sarandos had become “personally fed up” with the couple during the five years that Netflix invested millions of dollars into trying to produce documentaries, feature films and other projects with them. Netflix, of course, famously produced “The Crown,” the popular, six-season historical drama, detailing the queen’s reign from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Elizabeth reportedly enjoyed watching the first few seasons of “The Crown,” perhaps because it offered a generally respectful portrait of her, a royal expert said after her death in 2022.

Meanwhile, the company’s relationship with the queen’s self-exiled grandson and his wife had been far from “a fairy tale,” Variety reported. Executives and staff at the company were no longer willing to tolerate their business missteps, the lackluster ratings for Meghan’s lifestyle show, “With Love, Meghan,” the couple’s “poor communication” practices and their problematic “bedside manner,” Variety said.

Last month, it was reported that Netflix had divested from Meghan’s As Ever consumer-products venture, though it would continue to have an arrangement with the couple to get a “first look” at any proposed streaming projects. “The mood in the building is ‘We’re done,’” one Netflix insider told Variety of “the vibe on Meghan and Harry.” Netflix also is “exhausted” by the couple’s “perceived pattern of selling repackaged versions of the same story about their exit from royal life,” Variety added.

Representatives for both Netflix and the Sussexes pushed back against these reports, with a lawyer for the couple also denying that Sarandos ever said anything about wanting a lawyer present during his meetings with Meghan.

“This is blatantly false,” said the attorney, Michael J. Kump. “In fact, Meghan texts and speaks with Mr. Sarandos regularly, and has been to his home, sans lawyers.”

But the Variety reporter, chief correspondent Matt Donnelly, has stood by his his story in an interview with Daily Beast royal correspondent Tom Sykes.

Meanwhile, Vickers is similarly standing by his book’s assertions about the queen’s caution around her grandson.

“How do I know any of this?” Vickers writes, according to Newsweek.“My new book is based on 60 years of observation and research, at first from afar (rather like a trainspotter or stamp collector) but gradually closer to the centre and more focused.”

Vickers wrote that the queen “clearly wanted some kind of protection” when it came to Harry and Meghan, who developed a reputation for monetizing royal family secrets to promote their brand. An insider told Vickers that the queen wanted her lady in waiting by her side during Harry’s calls for “moral support and protection… to ensure there was a record of what was said.”

“I think the Queen was also on her guard with Harry because she was so hurt by what he had done,” the insider added to Vickers.

The insider was no doubt referring to the March 2021 Opran Winfrey interview, during which Meghan talked about how unhappy she was as a senior member of the royal family. She also accused unnamed royals — later reported to be King Charles and Kate Middleton — of saying racist things about her unborn son Archie.

As has been widely reported, that March 7 interview aired while the queen’s husband, 99-year-old Prince Philip, was in the hospital. Vickers also revealed that Philip had been privately battling pancreatic cancer since 2013, and underwent heart surgery days before the interview aired, as Newsweek also reported.

Following the interview, the queen issued her famous statement, “Some recollections may vary.” Her husband died a month later on April 9, 2021.

Even following the Winfrey interview, Harry and Meghan continued to claim that they had a special bond with his grandmother, with Harry telling Hoda Kotb on the “Today” show in April 2022 that they had a “special relationship.” Harry also known to be penning his tell-all memoir, “Spare,” at the time.

But Vickers reported that Elizabeth didn’t think much of Harry’s choices after moving to California and building a new life with Meghan in Montecito. “The queen took a dim view of her grandson,” Vickers wrote, “Saying to a confidante: ‘And now Harry has opted out, and for what? To be a carer for Archie.’”

When the Sussexes traveled with their children, Archie and Lilibet, to the U.K. in June 2022 for the queen’s Platinum Jubilee, she also refused to see them by herself when they visited her at Windsor Castle, according to Vickers. It was the first time the queen met Lilibet. “They visited the Queen with the children, again with a lady-in-waiting present,” Vickers wrote.

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