The duchess, who recently opened up to pal Tan France about family life, could face ‘a very difficult choice’ about her children if Prince Harry builds bridges in London, a royal expert predicts
With growing speculation that the Duke of Sussex and King Charles could be about to take the first step towards reconciliation, a royal expert says the Duchess of Sussex may be forced to make an “exceedingly difficult choice” when it comes to her children.
Harry, 40, is due to arrive in London for a charity event on 8 September and it’s been reported that a “line of communication” has been opened between the duke’s team and Buckingham Palace, and there is “every hope” the trip will include a meeting with his dad, 76.
The pair haven’t been in the same room since Charles’s cancer diagnosis in February last year, and royal expert Duncan Larcombe predicts any potential bridge building could result in some difficult conversations with Meghan back at home.
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Last week, the former Suits actress, 44, revealed she was left feeling “not well” after spending almost three weeks apart from Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, so the prospect of her children being part of Harry’s family reconciliation is unlikely to sit well with her.
Duncan tells new, “Meghan clearly hates being apart from her children and when Harry has come to the UK, Meghan hasn’t come with him and has been blamed for snubbing Britain as a result. I think it runs deeper than that, she wants to be a hands-on mum and was never prepared to make the sacrifice that royal mums have to make.
“If, and hopefully it’s a ‘when’ not an ‘if’, Harry starts to reconcile with his family over here, Meghan will ultimately face an exceedingly difficult choice. Does she come with Harry and look the people she’s criticised in the eyes, which is going to be tough? Or does she allow Harry to come with the children and stay away?
“If it’s the latter, she would miss the children, and it would be interpreted as an enormous snub by Meghan herself and the rift then becomes more about her than Harry. So she faces potentially difficult choices if we’re getting to a state where Harry’s prepared to bury the hatchet.”
Meghan’s “not well” confession came on the second series of her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, which dropped last week. While chatting to celebrity guest Queer Eye star Tan France about family, she said the longest she’d been away from the youngsters was “almost three weeks”, adding,
“I was… not well.” While she didn’t specify when it was, it is widely thought to have been around the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s death in September 2022.
The Windsor Castle walkabout following the Queen’s death was the last time Meghan was seen with Harry and her brother and sister-in-law, William and Kate, and the last official royal duty she performed. In the years since, Harry has repeatedly said he doesn’t want to bring his wife or children to the UK because he worries for their safety.
Last year, he cited the threat of possible attacks on Meghan in particular, revealing, “And whether it’s a knife or acid, these are things that are genuine concerns for me. It’s one of the reasons why I won’t bring my wife back to this country.”
The purpose of Harry’s London trip is to attend WellChild Awards, on 8 September, but in relation to a possible face-to-face with Charles, a source said last week, “This is not about grand gestures or set-piece meetings – it’s about a simple conversation between a father and his son.”
If it happens, Duncan says, Harry may soften his stance when it comes to the children – but adds that it’s unlikely to sit well with Meghan because “she will always fight for her family, to keep them together”.
“As Harry heads to the UK he will remember what he gave up,” he says. “He will be bitterly disappointed, privately, that his own children haven’t had a chance to get to know that grandfather. So the visits to Britain just reinforce the sense of loss for Harry, that he hasn’t been able to bring his children over – and he will want to address that somehow.
“A lot of noise is being made behind the scenes that there is a real desire to end this rift as soon as possible, and to meet. The key person in that will be the King. Charles will want to extend the olive branch to Harry and that will obviously lead to conversations that Harry will have to have with Meghan about what they do when it comes to the children.”
As with the first series, Meghan’s second instalment of her lifestyle show has failed to win over lots of the critics so far, despite the A-list guest list and expectations of a few peeks behind the curtain of their Californian life. Duncan says that from the few personal insights we’ve had from Meghan over the years, there is a lot about her that “is very incompatible with being a royal”.
He says, “When she married Harry, Meghan faced a lifetime of just doing duty. But we’ve seen she’s got a burning ambition and desire to make her own career and make her own money, and those things aren’t compatible with being a royal wife. Now we’ve got to know Meghan a bit more, we’ve seen she’s a headstrong free spirit, and strongly ambitious. She also has strong opinions that she isn’t afraid to express – and that is very incompatible with being a royal.
“The pattern for people like Sophie and Kate, and to some extent Zara, is they are not outspoken. They toe the line, to some extent as subordinates to the royal firm.”
Meghan’s opinions on being apart from her children, he adds, are especially at-odds with the reality of being a “royal mum”. “If you’ve got children and you’re a senior member of the royal family, your biggest challenge is to stop them growing up in a prison,” he says.
“Kate, for example, can’t just pop down to the shops with George. They need to take security guards with them, there needs to be a degree of planning, and they always run the risk of being mobbed by crowds. That’s not Meghan.”
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