Harry and Meghan laugh on big screen at basketball game in first outing since it emerged she won’t be at the Coronation

25 April 2023, 06:59 | Updated: 25 April 2023, 15:36

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been pictured enjoying a basketball game in the US - the couple’s first outing together since it emerged that Harry will be at King Charles' coronation without her.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were in good spirits, laughing in the stands, as they watched the LA Lakers vs the Memphis Grizzlies in game four of the NBA playoffs.

The duchess has faced claims she is avoiding the coronation because she believes the Royal Family didn’t properly confront its ‘unconscious bias’ before the Sussexes left for the US.

The Duchess’s spokesman said she is not thinking about ‘conversations from four years ago.’

In a statement to US magazine Harper's Bazaar, her press secretary Ashley Hansen insisted: “The Duchess of Sussex is going about her life in the present, not thinking about correspondence from two years ago related to conversations from four years ago.

“Any suggestion otherwise is false and frankly ridiculous. We encourage tabloid media and various royal correspondents to stop the exhausting circus that they alone are creating.”

Claims emerged last week that Meghan had written to King Charles about unconscious bias.

The Duchess of Sussex is believed to have named an individual within the family that was accused of speculating about the skin colour of the couple's unborn son Archie.

Harry and Meghan revealed in the tell-all interview with Oprah that members of the royal family had suffered with unconscious bias, but stopped short of naming who.

Everything you need to know about the King’s coronation

It has been reported that Meghan named the individual in the letter, which was a reply to one from King Charles himself, who was the only senior member of the royal family who contacted the couple following the interview.

In the letter, Meghan said she did not believe the comment about her son's skin colour was made with malice.

But the reply she received from King Charles is one of the factors in her not attending the Coronation, a source told The Telegraph.

While the letter was 'warm in tone', it was not enough to lead either side satisfied after the allegations. In a recent interview following the release of Spare, Prince Harry denied the couple had called anyone racist in the interview.