Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Meeting with Prince Charles Had “No Real Breakthrough,” Expert Says
“The curtain has come down.”
After the Service of Thanksgiving honoring Her Majesty on June 3—part of the four-day Platinum Jubilee festivities—Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were spotted leaving Prince Charles and Camilla’s London home, Clarence House. Many royal followers hoped that the meeting would produce a step forward in the recently rocky relationship between the Prince of Wales and the Sussexes—but it seems the opposite occurred.
“Well, I understand that it was a perfunctory meeting and that there was no real breakthrough,” royal expert Christopher Andersen says on a recent episode of the “Royally Us” podcast, per OK!. “And I have a feeling that Prince Harry definitely went there hoping for some sort of rapprochement, but there were no touchy-feely vibes coming back in his direction. So I think the curtain has come down.”
Andersen, who has written extensively about Princess Diana, says that the friction between father and son would have been upsetting to the late Princess of Wales.
“And one of the things I think is so sad about this is Diana, were she alive today, would be heartbroken by this,” he says. “She would have understood why Harry would have wanted to make his own life and wanted to go to California. But she always saw Harry as, you know, as William’s wingman. She always said, ‘My boys are my revenge.’ And what she meant by that was that, as a team, they would go on and carry the monarchy forward into a more modern era. But now it just looks like it’s going to be William and Kate, and their kids.”
Marie Claire reported that Harry and Meghan’s visit to the U.K. earlier this month likely wasn’t what they hoped it would be, not just in terms of Charles, but on the whole with the entire royal family.
“I think he [Harry] would have been very, very upset that he was largely ignored,” royal expert Angela Levin told The Sun, per OK!. “He still feels he’s owed an apology. But he’s the one who should apologize. He said during the Oprah interview that Charles and William were trapped. He said he’d been cut off by his father.”
According to a friend of Harry’s older brother Prince William—who, despite hopeful reports to the contrary, he still seems to be feuding with—the Duke of Cambridge is still bothered by the fallout with the Duke of Sussex.
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“He’s still deeply upset about it and feels let down,” William’s friend told The Times, per The Mirror. “But he’s moved on.”
Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.