After a whirlwind romance and wedding filled with glitz, glam, and pageantry, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — now the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — looked set for a long and glittering career as senior royals. After a string of public missteps, controversies, and snafus, that didn’t happen. What followed was a hugely publicized split from the Royal family, dragging out all sorts of family secrets and grudges. But at least Harry and Meghan have each other. Except… maybe not.
Since splitting from the Royal family Harry and Meghan have embarked on a series of new ventures, from their Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, to Harry’s tell-all memoir Spare, and even Meghan’s struggling-to-launch lifestyle business. The problem is, none of their ventures has been quite the critical success either of the Sussexes would have liked. There are even reports of increasing professional separation between the pair, as each has made solo trips and visits and seems to working on personal rather than joint projects.
It’s no surprise that speculation about their professional relationship has morphed into speculation about their personal relationship. With a relationship as highly public and publicized as Harry and Meghan’s, that’s unavoidable. According to a source speaking to RadarOnline.com, Harry is “desperately seeking a way out” of his marriage to Meghan. Now royal biographer Angela Levin has addressed statements regarding the couple working separately and looking to buy a home in Portugal by saying, “you don’t do that if you don’t want to separate for most of the time,” going so far as to wonder if the relationship is “in a very bad state”.
If all that wasn’t bad enough, the couple’s recent outing to Colombia caused the pair to miss son Archie’s first day of school. A royal insider is purported to have said of Harry’s views on the trip, “He might have signed off on Colombia, but it was pretty clear he didn’t want to be there and had Archie on his mind the whole time.” The trip is said to have been masterminded by Meghan, whose judgment — according to renowned editor Tina Brown, speaking to The Ankler Podcast — is said to be the “worst judgment of anyone in the world”.
Missing such an important day is likely to weigh heavy on Harry, who no doubt has fond memories of his mother sending him off to school. Harry, pictured with William in a famous photograph with their mother Diana, will certainly be glad to have the memory — as well as the photograph — of his mother on his special day. Unfortunately for Archie, neither of his parents was there for his.
There’s a big distinction to be drawn between Harry and his brother William here, as William was there to send his children off to school, even with his royal duties and his work with the homelessness charity, Homewards. There are even more differences between the brothers as William has signed up to Netflix rival Disney+ for his upcoming special, Prince William: We Can End Homelessness.
Prince William is suggested to have been less than thrilled with Harry’s choice of partner, stating that “Anything could happen” to Harry in a candid conversation. Given the news and speculation regarding both a professional and personal split between the Sussexes, it’s possible he was right.