Even though Prince Harry only stayed in England for roughly 24 hours for the coronation, he made sure to carve out some time to catch up with one family member during his brief visit.
As you know, the 38-year-old prince arrived in the UK on Friday for the historic event. Then, rather than sticking around for all of the later festivities, Harry ducked out on the royal family and went straight to Heathrow Airport to board a flight back to El Lay. The reason? He flew back to California hours after the ceremony to join Meghan Markle and Princess Lilibet for Prince Archie’s fourth birthday. But leaving without saying goodbye to his other family members? That’s brutal.
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Although it seemed like the Duke of Sussex barely interacted with the senior royals, that turned out not to be the case entirely! According to royal expert Nick Bullen, Harry did not speak with Prince William and Princess Catherine AKA Kate Middleton – but he did spend some quality time with King Charles the night before his crowning. He told Us Weekly on Wednesday:
“My understanding is he didn’t have any interactions with the Prince or Princess of Wales but that he did have a conversation with his father the night before.”
However, Harry pretty much steered clear of the other royals the rest of the time– even avoiding dinner with them at the private member’s club Oswalds. The editor-in-chief of True Royalty TV said:
“There was a dinner on the Friday night at a private member’s club in London called Oswalds that a lot of the rest of the family went to. The Yorks went to it, Princess Anne went to it with her children. … so a lot of the extended royal family were at this private dinner, and there were no shots of Harry arriving at that dinner. It looks like he didn’t go. Maybe he came into a back door, who knows? But it appears that he kept a very, very low profile during the whole piece.”
But did we expect anything less from the father of two? It’s no secret that Harry is on bad terms with most of the royals, and tensions have only ramped up after the tea released in his memoir Spare and Netflix docuseries. Despite their issues, it sounds like the royals were willing to put aside the feud for the weekend!
Nick claimed that the royals had no clue how long Harry planned to stay in London following the coronation, but a part of them hoped he’d join everyone at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the big day:
“Until the morning, nobody really knew what Harry’s plans were going to be for that afternoon. I think everybody knew he had a plane to catch. Everybody knew he was intending to get home, but there was a hope, I think, that he might be part of some of the family celebrations back at the palace. So, I think that there was a sadness that he wasn’t part of the fuller day, but, you know, they all knew he was gonna get [on] that plane.”
Now that the coronation is done, the likelihood of the Archewell founder returning to England and visiting the royals is slim. Bullen continued:
“There seems to be no reason for him to come back to London anytime soon. Meghan certainly is showing no interest in coming back. But I think what’s interesting is it’s possibly the beginning of the end of the Sussex interaction with the royal family.”
Oof. No matter what happened in the past, that’s still sad to hear for Harry. But moving forward, the expert thinks everyone will be see more and more of Prince William, Princess Catherine, and their three children — Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis — in the public eye to show off the future of the monarchy, explaining:
“I think that was what was really interesting about the coronation. It felt like Harry and Meghan were just sort of a sidebar to all of this. This was absolutely history — the future. And it felt like the family had sort of put a line in the sand and said, ‘Right, we are moving forward.’”
Bullen added:
“Those three children — Charlotte, George, Louis — are becoming more and more photogenic. They’re becoming more and more the story. I think every year that they get closer to adulthood, the more the Sussexes drift away from being central to the story.”
We’ll have to see if that ends up being the case. But for now, it seems like as long as the feud continues, these two aren’t going anywhere! Thoughts, Perezcious readers? Do you think there is no hope for a reconciliation between the royals and Sussexes? Sound OFF in the comments below.
[Image via MEGA/WENN]