Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Were Uninvited to Dinner With Queen Elizabeth During Megxit
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s interview with Oprah Winfrey revealed a lot of what the Sussexes endured while they were members of the royal family. CBS This Morning released additional clips from the interview, including one in which Prince Harry explained how Queen Elizabeth invited them to dinner at Sandringham but the couple was then told the queen was “busy.”
Were Prince Harry and Meghan Markle snubbed by Queen Elizabeth?
Prince Harry and Meghan announced their decision to step back as senior members of the royal family in January 2020, a move that Queen Elizabeth supported.
According to Prince Harry, the queen extended an invitation to the Sussexes to visit her at Sandringham when they arrived back in the UK from Canada. She noted they should stay for dinner. “My grandmother had said ‘the moment you land, come up to Sandringham, we’d love to have a chat, come for tea, why don’t you stay for dinner because it’s going to be a long drive and you’re going to be exhausted?,’” he recalled during the Oprah interview clip shared by CBS This Morning.
But Prince Harry received a message from his private secretary at the time that the queen’s private secretary said she was suddenly “busy.”
Prince Harry shared that the message was “basically saying ‘Please pass on to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that he cannot come to Norfolk. The queen is busy, she’s busy all week.'”
Oprah asked, “After she’d just invited to you?,” to which Harry confirmed, “She’d just invited me.”
“’The Queen is busy, she’s busy all week, do not come up here,’” he explained he was told.
Prince Harry spoke directly to the queen about the matter
Prince Harry decided to call his grandmother directly to get her story and she confirmed that she was busy with something on her calendar she wasn’t initially aware of. He asked her about the rest of the week and was told that she was busy then as well. Prince Harry explained to Oprah, “I didn’t want to push because I kind of knew what was going on.”
Oprah asked if the queen, being the queen, gets to make her own decisions about these matters and Prince Harry shared that’s not the case. He explained how the queen gets advice from the people around her and, unfortunately, it’s not always the best advice.
“No, when you’re head of the firm, there is people around you that give you advice,” he explained. “And what has also made me really sad is that some of that advice has been really bad.”
Prince Harry said they didn’t ‘blindside’ the queen
When Prince Harry and Meghan made their announcement about stepping back from their royal duties, there were reports that they “blindsided” the queen with the decision.
The couple confirmed that there was no truth to that and that Queen Elizabeth was involved in these conversations because they both respect Harry’s grandmother.
“No. I’ve never blindsided my grandmother I have too much respect for her,” he shared. “I hazard a guess that [the story] probably could have come from within the institution.”
“When we were in Canada I had three conversations with my grandmother and two conversations with my father before he stopped taking my calls,” he noted.
Prince Harry wants to heal his relationship with Prince Charles
Oprah followed up with Prince Harry about why Prince Charles stopped taking his calls. “Because, by that point, I took matters into my own hands,” he explained.
Prince Harry shared how he felt “let down” by his father, Prince Charles since there were similarities with his experience when he was married to Princess Diana.
“He knows what pain feels like and Archie’s his grandson,” Prince Harry explained. “But at the same time, of course I will always love him. But there’s a lot of hurt that’s happened and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship.”
