‘Impetuous’ Prince Harry Didn’t Do Royal Exit Right, Historian Says: ‘He Needed to Go Much Slower’
Three years since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left royal life behind for the U.S., a historian says the Duke of Sussex’s “incredibly difficult journey” started in a rather rushed way, albeit with a few “easy hits.”
Harry may not have realized the ‘incredibly difficult journey’ he started by stepping back from his senior working royal role
According to royal author and historian Dr. Tessa Dunlop, the Duke of Sussex might not have realized how hard it’d be to leave the royal family and share his story. Harry, she said on the To Di For Daily podcast, undertook “an incredibly difficult journey” in 2020.
On Jan. 8, 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s exit went public. The couple announced their intention to “step back” as senior working royals in an Instagram post.
Final official engagements followed, culminating in a tense-looking 2020 Commonwealth Day Service appearance alongside the now-King Charles III, Prince William, and Kate Middleton.
Later, came a stay at Tyler Perry’s Beverly Hills mansion, and, finally, moving to Montecito, California, where Harry and Meghan live with their two children; Prince Archie, 4, and Princess Lilibet, 2.
Speaking to the podcast’s host, Kinsey Schofield, Dunlop remarked Harry quickly launched into a “difficult” yet “lucrative” journey.
“I think it’s been an incredibly difficult journey,” she said. “I don’t think Harry has many assets, I don’t think he had the intellectual acumen and probably grounding in history, bizarrely, to understand just what he was trying to achieve.”
Harry ‘needed to go much slower’ with his royal exit
The almost 39-year-old should’ve eased into breaking away from royal life, Dunlop continued. “He needed to go much slower,” she said. “But I totally understand why the impetuous lad, the rival sibling, the bruised man wanted to smack it out there really quickly [and] get some easy hits.”
Some of the “hits” have included a 2021 bombshell Oprah interview, an equally headline-grabbing Netflix docuseries, and, most recently, a best-selling memoir.
“Except they’ve proved quite hard hits but lucrative ones, that’s for sure under his belt,” the historian added. In spite of all that, she shared that Harry probably never “would have ever envisaged the difficulty.”
Harry opened up in his Spare memoir, as well as his and Meghan’s 2021 Oprah interview, saying their exit was actually a long time coming. On one occasion, Harry admitted to having a desire for an “ordinary life” outside palace walls long before meeting Meghan in 2016.
The royal family’s stayed (mostly) quiet on Prince Harry’s exit from life as a senior working royal
Long since Spare’s release on Jan. 9, 2023, the world hasn’t heard anything from Buckingham Palace regarding Harry’s accusations or claims. The royal family’s stayed silent on the book in line with their “never complain, never explain” motto, which Harry slammed in one of his Spare promotional interviews. “There’s becomes a point when silence is betrayal,” he told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes.
Not unlike the release of Netflix’s Harry & Meghan docuseries nearly a month to the day before Spare, the royal family didn’t issue a statement. Instead, they continued with meetings and public appearances, leaving much to be said about their body language amid the book’s debut.
To date, the royal family’s only public response to any of Harry’s comments regarding his exit has come in the form of a 61-word statement. Released by Buckingham Palace on March 9, 2021, the royal family memorably remarked, “Recollections may vary.”
In the wake of Spare, Harry attended his father’s May 6 coronation at Westminster Abbey. Now he — and King Charles — have reported “peace talks” set for September 2023.
