Prince Harry has been accused of ‘KICKING down the door’ as he and Meghan Markle prepare to move back to Britain, six years after ‘Megxit’. The reported return of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has sparked fresh debate over their relationship with the Royal Family and what their move back to the UK could mean for the couple’s future.
Royal commentator Kinsey Schofield weighs in on the decision, examining why Harry and Meghan may have chosen to return to Britain after years living in the United States. She discusses the potential motivations behind the move and whether the reported change of circumstances could lead to a ‘happier Prince Harry’.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are reportedly planning to move back to Britain from the United States later this month. While they intend to live in a private residence and enroll their children in British schools, they are not currently returning as working royals. Royal commentators suggest this move signals the failure of their \"Megxit\" experiment to thrive independently.
Well, breaking news tonight, of course, dominating the first hour and a little bit of the second
hour of this programme. In the last few hours, it's emerged that Harry and Meghan are planning
to move back to Britain from the United States later this month. The Duke and Duchess of
Sussex are reportedly set to live in a private, non-royal residence outside of London, while
their children, seven-year-old Prince Archie and five-year-old Princess Lilibet, are enrolled
to start in a British school in September. There are currently no plans for Harry and
Meghan to return as working royals, we assume, although their move back to Britain will of
course raise those questions about whether that could change in the future. The King
was reportedly informed on Sunday about the move and is said to be pleased about the prospect
of seeing more of his son and grandchildren on a regular basis. Well, with me now is the
royal commentator Kinsey Schofield, because Kinsey, this is huge transatlantic news. Ultimately,
a lot of people will be asking those questions. Does this mean that we're going to be seeing a
lot more of the old Harry? I mean, I think that he recently said when he was there last month,
this is the happiest I've been in a really long time when he was doing media. He said,
thank you, I'm happy to be here. This is the happiest I've been in months, I think. So,
yeah, I think we might see a happier, jollier Prince Harry, but certainly when royal reporters
like myself were reporting that we were hearing that he was unhappy here in the States months and
years ago, Meghan would try to counter that on social media with like a video of him surfing
or something to that of our carousel love, you know, chic California cool to say, no, no, no,
everything's fine. And I think the fact that they have enrolled their children in school there
says the absolute opposite. There is no way to spin this. Megxit was a six year experiment
designed to prove that the Sussexes could thrive without the monarchy. And if Britain is becoming
their, you know, their primary home again, I think that it's proof that the experiment failed.
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to start protecting yourself digitally today. It's so interesting to look back on those original
reports of Megxit. I remember it breaking six years ago. I remember doing paper reviews that
were dominated by that story, splashed of course by the sun that got the news first.
And in that original copy, it was originally said that Harry and Meghan would be moving
not to California, not to America, but instead to Canada, a Commonwealth country where the king of
course remains head of state. Do you think that the wheels came off the bus at the moment of Megxit
or perhaps at the moment when these two abandoned the Commonwealth?
I think that it was before Megxit. I think it's in Canada when they are not spending the holidays
with the royal family and secretly building a new website, Sussexroyal.com, where they laid
out the new terms of the deal and without consulting the British royal family, created
these rules. They said that they were only going to be engaging with grassroots media and several
things that actually never came to fruition. But I think that that's really when the wheels
came off when they excluded the royal family from the conversation. And that's the first sign
publicly that the trust is deteriorating between these two entities because the royal family was
completely caught off guard by Megxit. And they were informed around the same time the media was
with this splashy website. At the same time that the Sussexes behind the scenes
were trying to trademark their names so that they could put it on tea towels, etc.
And so I think that that's really where we first see the breakdown between these two families.
Now, it's such a tragic story, really, and you described this as a sort of six-year
failed experiment. It's so interesting because there was such genuine goodwill from the United
Kingdom towards Harry and Meghan. I remember, I think it was 2018, when their big glorious
fairytale wedding was being rolled out through Windsor. I hosted a party and a bunch of friends
had the bunting up. A friend brought a projector. We watched the ceremony on a massive, massive
projected screen. And there was not a single feeling of ill will towards this couple.
When do you think it all started to go wrong? Well, Meghan is from Hollywood,
where with the right publicist, you can control the headlines. And we did grow up in a completely
similar age. She's a few years younger than me, but we did grow up in a completely different
environment in Hollywood, free social media, where you could have much more control over
the narrative than you can have today, thanks to the internet. And I think that when she realized
that there were going to be some negative headlines about her and they couldn't shut them down,
and she did not agree with the never complain, never explain strategy that the royal family
continues to believe so deeply in, that's where the problem really lied.
And yet the interesting thing is that this is an evolving monarchy that we're seeing
under Prince Charles. There is a bit more explaining going on than perhaps we saw
under her late majesty, the queen. The king is being open about his illnesses. We never heard
that sort of stuff under the previous monarch. And perhaps there is some sort of room for a
greater understanding between the Sussexes and the rest of the royal family. Perhaps there's
reform that can happen to both of these institutions, if that's not too grand a word
for the Sussex brand. No one is looking at this scenario and saying to themselves,
I really hope King Charles isn't kind to his own son, especially with his health problems. I think
everyone wants a personal rehabilitation or a personal reconciliation because we're decent
human beings. I think where our concern lies is the professional rehabilitation.
When you think about all of the weight on William's shoulders, Prince William's shoulders
over the last six years, it is very unfair to even flirt with the idea of Prince Harry coming
back in any sort of capacity. And this feels like the forced half in half out that Queen Elizabeth
said absolutely no to. And here is William, who over the last six years had to deal with the death
of his grandmother, the death of his grandfather, secretly holding the cancer of his, not just his
but his wife, managing the expectations with his children of such a scary scenario. When you
think about him having to deal with that alone with the help of his wife, but she's also got
cancer at the time, it just feels so unfair that he would have to inherit this problem.
So yes, on a personal level, we all want a reconciliation. But on a professional level,
I think a lot of a lot of people that have watched this all unfold are concerned that
this might be Harry kicking down the door and trying to force his way, which is the half in
half out the Queen Elizabeth said no to. So just quickly, and finally, Kinsey,
you're putting the chances of some sort of return to work as working members of the royal family
pretty much nil. I think that that's what they want. And they're trying to force and hopefully
King Charles does not force Prince William having to deal with this under a King William reign.
Hopefully he shuts it down.