Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Are Apparently Making Major Demands in Order to Confirm Their Attendance at the Coronation

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published 19 March 2023

Is this an invitation to a family event or a well-brokered business deal? It’s getting more and more difficult to tell as negotiations apparently continue between the Palace and the Sussexes, whose demands to attend King Charles’ Coronation in six weeks are sparking chaos, multiple outlets report.

Marie Claire reported recently that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been invited to the Coronation—whether they’ll attend or not remains unclear. According to The Sun, the couple have issued new requests in order to confirm their attendance: First off, they want their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, to be included (so far, we reported recently, they’re not invited), and they want the entire Sussex family of four to appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony alongside the rest of the royal family after the May 6 Coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey. (For comparison’s sake, during the Platinum Jubilee last summer, Harry and Meghan, though in attendance, did not appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony; that was reserved for working members of the royal family. Harry and Meghan stepped back from those duties in January 2020. Just in case you forgot.)

“The Palace are trying to wrap up negotiations as quickly as possible because they can’t go right up to the wire,” a source tells OK. “It could lead to chaos. It could very well be that it ends in stalemate, and they won’t attend. But the Palace is doing everything in its power to not let that happen.”

May 6 also happens to be Archie’s fourth birthday, and the source says “they would like some kind of nod to that at a lunch or drinks reception. Even if it’s just a happy birthday mention.”

The Daily Express reports that Harry and Meghan are “refusing to accept the invitation to the historic event until their requests are agreed to.”

Will the Palace budge?

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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.

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