Prince Harry and Meghan to move back to Britain, media reports say

LOS ANGELES - Prince Harry and his wife Meghan plan to move back to Britain in August, six years after they stepped down from their royal duties and relocated to the United States, media outlets reported on Aug 20.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are moving with Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, from California to Britain for an extended period and the children will begin school there in September, People magazine and British newspaper The Telegraph reported.

There was no comment from Harry’s spokesperson or from Buckingham Palace. However, a source close to the couple confirmed the reports’ accuracy.

According to the Telegraph, the couple will not return to royal duties nor live in a royal residence.

Their status will be unchanged, and they will remain non-working royals as agreed with the late Queen Elizabeth when they left in March 2020.

Harry married Meghan Markle in a dazzling ceremony at Windsor Castle in 2018, and it was hoped his union with the former actress, whose mother is Black, would reinvigorate the historic institution.

But it was not long before cracks in their relationship with the rest of the royal family began to emerge.

Two years later in March 2020, they announced they would step down from official duties and move to the US.

They moved to the wealthy seaside enclave of Montecito near Santa Barbara, California, with media reports putting the 2020 purchase price of their 16-bedroom home at US$14.7 million (S$18.7 million).

In the following years, Harry, now 41, and Meghan, 45, repeatedly criticised the royal family and the monarchy in TV interviews, a Netflix documentary series and most notably in Harry’s memoir Spare.

During a 2021 interview the couple gave to Oprah Winfrey, Meghan said an unnamed member of the family had asked how dark their son Archie’s skin might be.

Heir-to-the-throne Prince William, Harry’s elder brother, responded by denying that Britain’s royals were racist.

Harry had some particularly barbed comments for his father, King Charles, and his elder brother, heir-to-the-throne Prince William, leading to a total breakdown in their relationship.

Harry was also angry the British government changed his security arrangements and said the lack of ​automatic police protection meant he was unable to bring his children to Britain.

But relations with the King appeared to be thawing in September, and father and son met briefly for the first time in 20 months.

King Charles was diagnosed with an unspecified type of cancer in 2024.

He announced on television last December that he had responded “exceptionally well” to treatment and that doctors were reducing his treatments.

In July, Harry, Meghan and their children visited Britain, and Charles saw his grandchildren for the first time since 2022.

However, the King, while welcoming the chance to see more of the Sussexes, himself only became aware of the couple’s plans to return to Britain on Aug 16.

While Harry and the King’s relationship might have improved, he is still barely on speaking terms with his brother.

Harry and Meghan embarked on several media ventures from their home just north of Hollywood, signing multi-million dollar deals with Spotify for a podcast series and with Netflix for programming including a lifestyle show hosted by Meghan, a former actor.

The projects produced mixed results.

Harry’s tell-all book was a bestseller but their podcast deal ended and Meghan’s Netflix show was not renewed for a third season.

“I think they didn’t achieve the superstar status they wanted,” said Dominic Patten, executive editor of Hollywood publication Deadline.com.

They did, however, keep the public interested in their story in a town full of big-name celebrities, Patten said.

“He and Meghan have kept that flame aflutter,” Patten said. “If you look at how quickly Hollywood careers can burn out, on that level, by that metric, they’ve been successful.” REUTERS