In January 2020, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, announced via their Instagram page that they would step back as senior royal family members.
They intended to split their time between the United Kingdom and the United States of America. But by February 2021, Buckingham Palace announced they would stop being full-time working royals.
The “progressive new role within this institution” they tried to implement had failed.
The couple cite security concerns and the intense press they received as a large part of why they wanted to step back from public life.
Harry was undoubtedly worried that what happened with his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, could happen to Meghan.
The couple sat with Oprah Winfrey in what would become an Emmy-nominated interview, as reported by Monsters and Critics. The interview detailed Harry and Meghan’s life as working royals.
Instead of letting them lead a private life, Harry’s deal with Netflix, estimated to be worth $100 million, and the Oprah Winfrey interview have kept the couple in the news.
Prince Harry and Meghan’s call to King Charles may have been leaked to the press
King Charles celebrated his 75th birthday on November 14. Despite being estranged from his younger son, Prince Harry reports that a phone call between them made the news.
The news outlet The Telegraph told a story detailing a “warm” call between Prince Harry and his father, King Charles. It was also communicated that Meghan joined the call.
It was also said that the couple’s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, prerecorded a song for the King.
But now, a palace insider told PageSix, “Harry and Meghan fight for privacy when it suits them, and yet the minute Harry gets on the phone to the King, it’s in a newspaper.”
Harry and Meghan are being accused of leaking the phone call. This could be to garner goodwill from them with the public. But the palace insider called the couple “hypocrites” because they chose to make the call public.
Prince Harry and Meghan were asked to vacate Frogmore Cottage over the summer
After Harry’s tell-all book, Spare, was published, the royal family asked Harry and Meghan to vacate their home, Frogmore Cottage.
Spare is a memoir ghostwritten by J. R. Moehringer and published by Penguin Random House. It is full of scandalous gossip about Harry and his family. One such story has Prince William and Harry coming to blows in a fight.
The cottage was a gift to the couple from the late Queen Elizabeth but has since been given to the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, who happens to be a brother to King Charles.
Relations between Harry and his family continue to be distant.