When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left their duties as working royals behind in 2020, it shocked nearly everyone in the world. However, as they’ve told their side of the story in a bombshell Oprah interview, their revealing Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, and the prince’s allegation-filled memoir, Spare, that decision was just the tip of a very large and emotionally fraught family iceberg. Now it seems that King Charles and the Sussexes want to mend the rift, but others think that trust and a potential Spare 2 is a concern.
What’s Being Said About The Issues Stopping Prince Harry, Meghan Markle And King Charles From Reconciling?
When it comes to public family problems, the royals have certainly had their share of them over the last several years. It was almost immediately clear that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s choice to leave their status as working royals and full-time life in England behind led to a rift between them and Harry’s family, and as time has passed there doesn’t seem to be much headway on a real reconciliation.
Recent reports stated that the relationship between The Duke of Sussex and his father, King Charles III has “deteriorated to a new low level” because of Harry’s concerns about security when he and his family are in England, but another claim is now saying that the royal family’s “trust” of Harry is a problem. As a source told The Times:
The problem for the King and other members of the family is the worry that if they have a chat with Harry, it will appear in Spare volume two. How do you regain the trust? I don’t think Harry ever can. But from the conversations I’ve had with the King, I would never say their relationship is irreparable. The King’s capacity to forgive his son is undimmed. There are other members of the royal family who are much more weighted against Harry, that’s the problem.
And therein lies the problem with a tell-all memoir. If the people you “tell all” about are still alive and you’d like to have any open and honest conversations with them in the future, they are unlikely to do so easily, for fear of you banking their words for public use one day. Even though we've heard nothing about plans for additional tell-alls, and even if Meghan and Harry have revealed nothing but the whole truth during their time defending their decision to leave royal life behind, the idea of the trust between them and others in the family being broken is rather understandable.
According to this source, King Charles is willing to work through his worries so that he can have his son (and grandchildren) be a part of his life on a more regular basis, but other royals are unwilling to trust Harry again. The father and son made some steps toward patching things up after the king revealed his cancer diagnosis in early 2024. Without bringing Meghan or their children (Archie, now 5, and Lilibet, now 3), Harry visited Charles when his cancer was made public. However, that visit was said to have lasted for less than 45 minutes, which doesn’t seem like a particularly good sign that fences are truly being mended.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also reached out to Kate Middleton when she made news of her own cancer diagnosis public, but it’s been said that she and Prince William did not respond to whatever well wishes were sent.
Look, we all know that familial issues are some of the most difficult ones to overcome, whatever the underlying cause. With everything that’s gone on between Meghan, Harry and his royal relatives, all we can be relatively certain of is that it will probably take quite some time for them to have a somewhat normal relationship again.
