Princess Diana's biographer says Prince Harry and Prince William have a long way to go before they reconcile

• A royal biographer dismissed reports that William and Harry could be repairing their relationship.
• Andrew Morton says the family still has to recover from Harry's comments in the Oprah interview.
• Harry told Oprah that his brother and father are "trapped" in the institution.

Video footage of Prince Harry and Prince William chatting after Prince Philip's funeral on April 17 sparked media speculation over whether their reported rift has come to an end.

Reports of tension between the brothers first emerged in 2018. Harry appeared to confirm this in 2019, saying in an ITV documentary that he and William were "on different paths."

The funeral service St George's Chapel marked the first time the brothers had seen each other publicly since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's final royal engagement in March 2020.

According to royal biographer Andrew Morton, they have a long way to go before they fully repair the relationship.

"There's a general feeling in the media and amongst the public that we'd like to see them reconciled. So everybody, whether it's true or not, is grasping at any kind of straws of reconciliation and building a straw house of hope," Morton, author of "Elizabeth and Margaret," told Insider.

"I think there's a lot of water that's got to go under the bridge before those two and their father are reconciled. You don't say that your brother's trapped and your father's trapped in the institution, which you were born into, and expect everyone to be all sweet," he added.

Harry spoke about Prince Charles and Prince William - who are first and second in line to the throne - and their positions within the royal family during his Oprah interview in March.

"My father and my brother, they are trapped," Harry said. "They don't get to leave. And I have huge compassion for that."

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also accused unnamed members of the royal family of making racist comments, telling Oprah there were "concerns and conversations" about how dark Archie's skin would be before he was born.

Gayle King, a friend of Markle and Harry's, told "CBS This Morning" she had spoken with the couple after the interview and was told Harry's conversations with his brother and father were "not productive."

William was the first royal to provide a comment in response to the Oprah interview, telling reporters on March 11 that "we're very much not a racist family."

Morton is best known for working with Princess Diana in secret for her biography, "Diana: Her True Story," published in 1992.

Diana provided tapes of her speaking about her life to the author, with the agreement that nobody would find out she contributed to the book.

Footage from the tapes was published for the first time in the 2017 National Geographic documentary, "Diana: In Her Own Words."

Morton also told Insider that Diana's funeral at Westminster Abbey in 1997 was a complete contrast to Prince Philip's funeral.

He said Philip's funeral, which had been scaled down to 30 attendees due to COVID-19 restrictions, was "characterized by service and duty" and showed "Britain's stiff upper lip."

"That was a marked contrast to the weeping and wailing that surrounded Diana's funeral. That was a people's funeral. Philip's was very much a royal funeral," he said.

Representatives for the Duke of Cambridge did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Representatives for the Duke of Sussex declined to comment.