‘NO WAY BACK FOR HARRY & MEGHAN’
As bombshell book lays bare their bitter rift with Royal Family, sources warn of devastating consequences
HARRY and Meghan will never resume offi- cial roles following the bombshell biography laying bare their rift with the Royal Family.
The couple have ‘torpedoed’ any chance of creating a new position with the help of the Queen and senior royals when their ‘trial period’ in the US ends, sources believe.
The book, which reveals their soured relationship with the monarchy in excruciating detail, is likely to scupper any hopes of renegotiating their royal duties when ‘Megxit’ is reviewed.
The revelations will also harm efforts to repair their rift with harry’s brother William and sister-in-law Kate, it is feared. A
royal household source said: ‘The door will always be open to them as much-loved members of the family. But it’s hard to see how they can now salvage the new role they wanted as “hybrid” royals, running commercial careers alongside royal duties from the US.’
Another source told the Mail: ‘The review period has not yet been discussed but it doesn’t seem as if there is any way of going back now. Some very private family matters have now been aired in public, seemingly with their blessing. That will be hurtful.’
The one-year ‘probationary’ period was designed to give all members of the family breathing space and allow Harry and Meghan to establish their independent new lives, while offering them the chance to return to the royal fold if they changed their minds.
But multiple sources believe the way the couple have conducted themselves in Los Angeles – such as borrowing a glitzy £14.5million Beverly Hills mansion – and now the bombshell book have put an end to any hope of their returning, in a working role at least.
One senior figure added: ‘Given the state of the world this just seems so ill-timed. The Sussexes need to move on.’
Harry and Meghan have publicly denied giving an interview to the authors of Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family, or ‘contributing’ to the book. But their statement failed to address whether they had given permission for their closest friends, staff and associates to collaborate with it.
Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand say they have written the book with the ‘participation of those closest to the couple’ and boasted of having access to Harry and Meghan’s personal and professional ‘inner circle’. Insiders firmly believe that would only have happened with the couple’s permission, tacit or otherwise.
Several specific incidents, including details of the sacking of Archie’s night nurse and a private lunch Harry had with the Queen, which have featured in publicity for the book, would also have largely been known only to Harry and Meghan.
The book, serialised in the Times and Sunday Times, has detailed the increasingly bitter relationship between Harry and William, as well as the rollercoaster romance that saw the couple declare ‘I love you’ within three months. It claims:
▪ Harry was so entranced by Meghan he convinced himself she was the woman who he would marry after only their second date;
▪ Meghan used to tip off the paparazzi when working as an actress in Canada, despite her later going on to claim she didn’t understand the ‘tabloid culture’;
▪ Meghan’s friends claimed she endured prejudice from the royal household, with a senior staff member overheard telling a colleague: ‘There’s just something about her I just don’t trust.’;
▪ Harry believed William was a ‘snob’ for urging him not to rush into his relationship with Meghan, worrying his brother was being ‘blindsided by lust’. The brothers have barely spoken since;
▪ Meghan was ‘disappointed’ that Kate did not welcome her into the family and found her frosty;
▪ One senior royal referred to the ex-actress as ‘Harry’s showgirl’;
▪ Harry felt ‘unprotected’ by his family and disparaged within palace walls for being ‘too sensitive and outspoken’;
▪ Senior courtiers in other households felt that the global popularity of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ‘needed to be reined in’;
▪ A tearful Meghan told friends about their decision to quit royal duties: ‘I gave up my entire life for this family.’
While the biography is short on new detail, it offers a fascinating take on events over the last two years that have rocked the Royal Family from Harry and Meghan’s perspective. And their resentment is all too clear for the world to see.
Royal insiders believe the ‘bitterness’ and ‘score settling’ that characterise the book make a mockery of the Queen’s warm words when she gave them her blessing to seek a new life in North America, but deliberately ‘left the door ajar’ by saying they would review arrangements in January next year. The couple have, of course, insisted on keeping their Windsor home, Frogmore Cottage, as a UK base when they spend time here with their son, Archie, who hasn’t returned since last November.
Two further sources said the biography – dubbed the ‘gospel according to Harry and Meghan’ – had made the couple look ‘irrelevant’, particularly coming out at the height of the global Covid crisis. ‘The world has moved on as a result of the pandemic and the Royal Family have had to as well,’ said one.
‘This book has nothing new, frankly, friends have just presented events through a certain lens. People normally realise that actually it’s a lot more nuanced and finely balanced than that.
‘There are far more important things going on in the world, is the general view at the palace.’
The other source added: ‘No one is angry. It was all to be expected. But it is hoped they have got whatever they want to get off their chests now, move on and be happy with their lives.
‘People are just all too familiar with this and nobody wins. They seem to be fighting invisible enemies here, there and everywhere.’
Courtiers point out that other royals, including William and Kate, had refrained from making their own opinions regarding recent events public in order to ‘let the dust settle’, but the new biography has just ‘blown a hole in that’.
Comment – Page 18