Prince Harry torn apart by furious GB News star over ‘most hurtful King Charles move yet'

Prince Harry faced heavy criticism from GB News presenter Anne Diamond over his latest alleged move that has left royal fans stunned. It has been reported that Harry is considering further distancing himself from his father, King Charles, after relocating to Los Angeles with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their children in 2021.

MailOnline's Richard Eden reports that the Duke of Sussex consulted his uncle, Earl Charles Spencer, about the prospect of changing his surname to Spencer on a recent trip to the UK. He is said to have actively explored the possibility of abandoning the Mountbatten-Windsor surname currently used by his children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. A friend of Harry's reported: "They had a very amicable conversation and Spencer advised him against taking such a step." Anne hit out at Charles’s estranged youngest son as she appeared on Sunday's edition of GB News.

She raged: "I can’t think of a more hurtful insult that Harry could deliver to his father, can you? To say, ‘I no longer want your name. I want my mother’s name. It’s like declaring a divorce, only worse.”

Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams responded that the extraordinary report underlines the "toxicity" of the ongoing royal row.

“You wonder precisely what else the Sussexes could do. We saw Harry recently on the BBC with all sorts of accusations, some of them rather fantastic. There’s no doubt that the Oprah interview, where Meghan floated the prospect of Archie not becoming a prince because of some racism, was utter nonsense.

"The moment they became grandchildren of the monarch, both of them had the option of taking the HRH. The problem with the Sussexes is that, clearly, very little has been thought out. They are supposed to have advisers.”

Had the change gone through, it could have affected not only Harry’s public identity but also the names of his children, Archie and Lilibet, both of whom currently use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor—a hybrid of the Queen’s family name and that of Prince Philip, who adopted the Mountbatten name upon becoming a British subject in 1947.

Had Harry moved forward with a surname change, his daughter, Princess Lilibet, whose middle name honours Diana, would have become Princess Lilibet Diana Spencer.

This move could have been particularly painful to King Charles, who holds the Mountbatten legacy in a high regard. Louis Mountbatten, the first Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was a beloved mentor to Prince Philip. The Queen and Prince Philip decided in 1960 to bestow Mountbatten-Windsor as the family name for their direct descendants.