How Meghan Markle’s Perspective on Royal Family Rift Is Different From Prince Harry’s

Prince Harry has been open about the continuing rift between himself and other members of the British royal family, including his father, King Charles, and older brother, Prince William. Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, moved to California in 2020 and issues over visiting the U.K. have arisen in relation to security concerns. This week, a source tells People that the couple has different perspectives on how to move forward.

“They’re aware of everything going on in England, but they’re being left out of the details—there’s clearly no trust,” said the insider, adding that Meghan is “focused on the future,” and “is very business about it.”

She remains firmly supportive of her husband, however, despite his own tendency to dwell on the widening gulf. But the Duchess of Sussex “wishes her husband could feel less burdened by the past and more present in the life they’ve built together.”

Charles has been receiving regular cancer treatments and is allegedly struggling with the idea of reconciliation.

“It’s been difficult for him to even get proper updates about his dad,” the source explained.

Harry has been requesting for years to have automatic police protection applied to his entire family so they can visit the country again, a privilege applied to working members of the royal family. They lost their appeal on the matter in April of this year.

Charles and William’s hesitation towards reconciliation is supposedly about “trust” and the belief that heir interactions with the Sussexes may not remain private. The couple has shared intimate details of their lives in their popular Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan and in Harry’s memoir Spare, as well as a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.

In a 2023 interview with The Daily Telegraph, Harry admitted he actually removed anecdotes from Spare after considering how it might divide him from his father and brother.

“The first draft was different,” he said. “It was 800 pages, and now it’s down to 400 pages. It could have been two books, put it that way. And the hard bit was taking things out.”

And there were some things he didn’t “want the world to know.”

“I don’t think they would ever forgive me,” Harry added. “This is not about trying to collapse the monarchy, this is about trying to save them from themselves.”