Prince Charles and Prince Harry Planned a Dinner Meeting in July

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published 11 July 2021

During his most recent trip home to the United Kingdom earlier this month, Prince Harry reportedly had plans for a one-on-one dinner with his father, Prince Charles.
The royals reportedly planned to get together to begin the process of healing their strained relationship and working through the issues that got them to this point, including some raised by Harry during his sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey this spring.
According to the Daily Mail, Charles was reportedly "dreading" the dinner and it's unclear if he and Harry followed through on their plans or decided to push the meeting back to a future date.

Prince Harry may have taken the first step toward repairing his relationship with his dad, Prince Charles.

According to the Daily Mail, a royal source says the estranged father and son made plans to have dinner together one-on-one when Harry was back home in the United Kingdom for a ceremony to unveil a memorial statue in honor of his late mother, Princess Diana.

Although Charles was in Scotland when Harry and his brother, Prince William, unveiled the statue in London, the Daily Mail report suggests he had planned to travel back to London to get some face time with his youngest son and to begin the process of working through their issues, some of which Harry discussed publicly during his and Meghan Markle's sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey this spring. Charles, at least, was not said to be looking forward to having those hard conversations.

'Finding Freedom'

"A nervous Charles was said to be 'dreading' the dinner—presumably in case he made some faux pas which could be misconstrued and repeated to the Duchess of Sussex back home in California," according to the Daily Mail report.

There's no word about how the secretive dinner went—or if it actually happened, for that matter. We'll all just have to wait and see how things progress between Harry and the rest of the royal family, but, as the Mail points out, just the fact that plans like these are being made is a move in the right direction.

Kayleigh Roberts is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years of professional experience. Her byline has appeared in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic, Allure, Entertainment Weekly, MTV, Bustle, Refinery29, Girls’ Life Magazine, Just Jared, and Tiger Beat, among other publications. She's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.