Prince Harry’s decision to quit his senior royal role five years ago is believed to have damaged the relationship with some of his royal relatives. Just a year after leaving the UK in 2020, Harry and his wife Meghan Markle sat down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey, where they made some damaging claims about the Firm.
In 2022, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex then delved even further into criticising royal life in their Netflix docuseries Harry and Meghan. Just months later in 2023, Harry, 40, shook up his royal relationships even more by publishing his memoir Spare. However, since this book was published, Harry has appeared to take a step back from criticising the Royal Family and instead has spoken about his hopes for a royal reconciliation.
While the rift is not believed to have been healed yet, The Mail on Sunday revealed that a meeting was held in London last week between Tobyn Andreae, the King’s communications secretary, and two members of staff from Harry and Meghan Markle’s team – Meredith Maines, the couple’s chief communications officer and head of their household in Montecito, California, and Liam Maguire, who runs the Sussexes’ PR team in the UK.
Although just an informal meet-up, it is hoped that this could be the start of a royal reconciliation after years of physical and emotional distance.
However, one royal expert now suggested that one of Prince Harry’s past actions could hinder the hopes of reconciliation. This is because after publishing his bombshell memoir, Harry, 40, said that he had more content he could have put in his book, and some that he had to cut out.
Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, royal correspondent at 5 News Simon Viger believes Netflix will eventually want Harry, as part of their ongoing contract, to do another bombshell programme on the Firm.
This could damage any hope of a successful royal reconciliation.
Mr Viger said: “My issue with Netflix is Harry has said there’s stuff he’s kept back that he hasn’t put in the book, that he didn’t put in the documentary. And he’s never going to talk about it.
“If the Netflix deal is continuing, they’re going to say, ‘look, so much for behind the scenes at Polo and flower sprinkles, we actually want to know what else there is.’”