Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ‘leading separate lives’ as public duties keep them apart, says royal expert

25 April 2023, 13:51 | Updated: 25 April 2023, 23:48

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are leading "separate lives" because of the pressures of public life, a royal expert has claimed.

Meghan and Harry are "breaking apart from each other in terms of their agendas", Celia Walden said.

Harry is flying back to the UK from the couple's California home to attend his father King Charles' coronation next weekend, while Meghan will remain in the US with the children.

Meghan has denied that staying in California is in any way related to her claim that an unnamed senior member of the royal family had expressed concern about possible the skin colour of Archie, her first son with Harry, with whom she was pregnant at the time.

Ms Walden said that Meghan wanted attention on her and her relationship with Harry at all times, rather than fading into the background.

Read more: Harry claims he was blocked in getting apology from Rupert Murdoch 'to ensure Charles would be accepted as King'

She added: "I think also there are already whispers of the idea that Harry and her seem to be breaking apart from each other in terms of their agendas slightly.

"They are both sort of leading slightly separate lives in terms of their public duties at the moment.

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

Read more: 'Homesick' Prince Harry was 'desperate' to go to the coronation and 'repeatedly tried to make plans with King Charles'

Harry and Meghan were 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.

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.