(NewsNation) — Prince Harry’s first trip back to the U.K. in four years isn’t even over and already a disaster.
A public spat with Buckingham Palace over accommodation, a photo op with a photographer accused of antisemitism, and a crushing, humiliating defeat to the Daily Mail in the High Court all landed within the same week.
Daily Beast royal editor and founder of The Royalist, Tom Sykes, told me almost nothing went the way Harry planned.
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“What he thought was going to happen was that he was going to successfully pressure the British government into giving him security, that he was going to be staying at Buckingham Palace, that he was going to win the court case, and that he was going to give a victory lap on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice,” Sykes said.
None of it happened.
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The week opened with a very public fight over where Harry would stay. Harry’s camp claimed he’d wanted to stay at Buckingham Palace and was refused; the Palace shot back that he’d been invited, declined, and then tried to arrange it at the last minute.
For Sykes, the episode exposed “the absolutely chaotic organisation at the heart of what is left of the very gutted and denuded Sussex organisation.”
The most damning detail? According to Harry’s own spokesperson, the prince was handling the negotiations personally.
FILE – Britain’s Prince Harry arrives at London’s High Court to lead a group accusing the Daily Mail’s publisher of privacy invasion through unlawful tactics in a trial that is part of a wider phone hacking scandal in London, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
Britain’s King Charles III addresses a joint meeting of Congress while Vice President JD Vance, left, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., right, listen in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, April 28, 2026. (Kylie Cooper/Pool via AP)
“We’ve been told by Harry’s spokesperson that Harry was conducting these negotiations direct,” Sykes said. “It’s an extraordinary indictment of how arrogant Harry is, what a difficult position, frankly, his staff are put into by this mercurial man, changing his mind from one moment to the next and clearly not looping anybody into it.”
“The idea that Harry is just kind of emailing some accommodation manager at Buckingham Palace, I mean, it was just farcical, really,” he added. “For everybody watching, it was, in a way, quite amusing. But I’m sure for Harry, it was yet another example of, ‘Oh God, everything’s so awful, the world’s against me and they’re all trying to stitch me up.'”
Prince Harry attends premiere hosted by alleged antisemite
Hours after landing, and after months of insisting the U.K. is too dangerous for him without armed police protection, Harry changed clothes and headed straight to a film premiere hosted by Misan Harriman, his and Meghan’s longtime photographer, who has faced accusations of antisemitism. The film’s title: “I Shoot People.”
“I thought it was an absolutely ridiculous thing to do on his first day back in the United Kingdom,” Sykes said. “There is a reason, isn’t there, why Harry is not considered a great thought leader on the subject of antisemitism. And that is because when he was twenty, he was photographed wearing a Nazi outfit at a fancy dress party.”
Worse, Sykes noted, Harry never truly owned that scandal: “In his book, he said it was all William and Catherine’s fault.”
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On Harriman, Sykes didn’t mince words about the photographer’s history, noting he had to give up his post at the South Bank Centre, one of the U.K.’s leading arts organizations, after “he sort of retweeted these unhinged claims that kind of Jared and Ivanka were selling swathes of Albania to the Jewish mafia and stuff. I mean, it’s absolutely bonkers tinfoil hat stuff.”
Sykes allowed that loyalty to an old friend is understandable, up to a point. “For somebody in Harry’s position, it’s entirely acceptable to think, ‘Do you know what, this is my old friend and they’re being monstered by the press and I feel for them.’ But at the same time: ‘Do you know what, just today, I don’t think I can actually turn up and be photographed next to him in a promotional publicity shot for a film bearing the very unfortunate name ‘I Shoot People.'”
Invictus: The real loser
The timing could hardly be worse. Harry is in the U.K. specifically to raise roughly £25 million from corporates and private sponsors for the 2027 Birmingham Invictus Games.
“I think Invictus is the real loser in this,” Sykes said. “At some point, and I think that point may be coming sooner now, I think they’re going to have to accept that having Harry as their patron, as the spokesman, as the face of the organization, is unhelpful.”
The problem is structural, not just reputational: “The head of the British Armed Forces is the King. You can’t have an organization which is supporting former members of the British Armed Forces at war with the institution headed by the head of the British Armed Forces. It just doesn’t make any logical sense.”
He reserved his sympathy for the volunteers. “I do feel incredibly sorry for the people, a lot of volunteers who work for Invictus, who’ve been putting out the bunting and organising. You can imagine them all being on the phone this weekend to each other going, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘I don’t know.’ That is just not a good situation. It’s not a respectful way to treat people who are giving their time to a cause. I think it’s a shitty thing to do, frankly.”
Prince Harry has ‘severe paranoia’: Tom Sykes
The maddening thing, Sykes argued, is that redemption remains entirely within Harry’s reach.
“He could completely reset this whole thing. He could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,” Sykes said. “If he just stood up and gave a speech and said: ‘I’m really sorry, I spoke a bit hastily when I accused the judge of a whitewash. I’m really grateful to the judge for his work. I’ve accepted the verdict of the court. I accept that I’m not entitled to police security. I want to renounce my titles for me and my kids. I love the United Kingdom. I want to come back here more. I’m really sorry for any damage I’ve done to relations with my father or anyone I may have upset.’ Do you know what? Overnight, people would say, ‘Do you know what, man? Good on you.’ They genuinely would.”
He pointed to George Michael as the model, a star who, caught in one of his many indiscretions, simply apologized “to all my fans for letting you down, to everyone else for being so boring.”
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry pose for pictures after visiting the observatory in One World Trade in New York, Sept. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
Britain’s Prince William and Britain’s Prince Harry walk beside each other after viewing the floral tributes for the late Queen Elizabeth II outside Windsor Castle, in Windsor, England, Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022. Prince Harry has said he wants to have his father and brother back and that he wants “a family, not an institution,” during a TV interview ahead of the publication of his memoir. The interview with Britain’s ITV channel is due to be released this Sunday. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)
“Everybody just loved George because it had the humility,” Sykes said. “That’s actually all Harry needs to do right now. At any moment, it’s within his grasp to say, ‘I accept reality, and I’m moving on.'”
So why won’t he?
“Because I think that there is a severe paranoia, basically. And I think there is a sort of borderline breakdown going on,” Sykes said. “Harry’s told us repeatedly about his mental health troubles. Anybody who has had mental health troubles knows that mental health is not a binary thing. It’s not like you’re really, really bad one day and then you just recover and you’re fine forever after because you went to some therapy that your wife sent you to. I think Harry is having a really, really tough time at the moment.”
“Harry’s problem is that he’s just stuck in this narrative of not being able to accept it, not being able to move on,” he added. “Because he won’t accept it, he can’t move on. It’s impossible to move on with your life until you accept the things that you cannot change.”
What happens next?
As for the rest of the trip, with Meghan reportedly set to appear at Invictus events in Birmingham on Friday, likely with the children in the country privately, Sykes urged caution.
“They’ve said she might turn up. I’d be cautious about predicting anything with this couple anymore,” he said. “The one thing you can say about these two is that they appear to have the hide of a rhinoceros.”
His prediction, asterisks attached: “Megan will show up, they’ll go and do their thing at Althorp, they’ll get a photo or a snap of the kids at Diana’s grave, they will go back to America, and they’ll get busy working on the thirtieth anniversary of Diana’s death documentary that I’ve been told by very good sources they’re doing for Netflix.”
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And the King? “It looked like” that Charles has finally had enough, Sykes said, but Palace briefings suggest a room will still be made available in September, when Harry returns for the WellChild Awards, ahead of the Invictus Games themselves next year. “They hope they’ve learned their lesson not to bring all this drama with them.”
His parting warning: “Unless and until Harry can accept that he needs to manage his security a little bit differently, it’s just going to end in disaster again.”
Tom Sykes is the royal editor of the Daily Beast and founder of The Royalist. His book, “The Dukes of Hazzard, on Harry, Prince Andrew, and Edward, the former king turned duke,” is out next year.
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