It has been more than five years since Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle stepped down from their roles as royals and moved first to Canada and then California, where they live with their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. The Duke of Sussex had long been having a tense relationship with his father King Charles and brother Prince William, who he said he is no longer on speaking terms with.
In November 2019, following the release of a ITV documentary in which Markle admitted she was “not really okay,” the couple announced they would take a six-week break from royal duties, which included skipping the annual family Christmas at Sandringham and spending the holidays in Canada. They then made their bombshell announcement that they would be making their hiatus permanent on January 8, 2020. However amid “peace summits” and talk of rapprochment, could they soon be welcomed back to the fold?
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They completed their final royal duties in the UK by March 2020, and, after a short stint in Canada, Harry, Markle, and baby Archie officially relocated to California in part thanks to friend Tyler Perry, who loaned the family his house in Beverly Hills. A year later, in their first interview since leaving the Royal Family, the pair held nothing back in their conversation with Oprah Winfrey. Even more information was revealed in their Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan.
While they did return for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, and then her funeral in the following September, the strained relations took a turn for the worse when Prince Harry published his 2023 memoir, Spare. In it, he railed against his father and William and described what it was like to play second fiddle to his sibling.
“After Spare, [Harry and Meghan] realized, ‘OK, we’re ready to move on. We want to focus on our future,'” a friend of the family told Us Weekly. “‘We can have meaning and importance separate from the lives we had previously.'”
In May 2023, Prince Harry attended his father’s coronation alone, with Markle remaining in California with the children.
Do you think the Royal Family should extend an invitation to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to rejoin the Royal Family?