Prince Harry’s ‘Double-Edged’ Comment to Staffers About Buckingham Palace Gift After Preparing 2020 ‘Stepping Back’ Statement
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle famously announced their decision to “step back” as working royals in January 2020. Before their Instagram statement, however, the Duke of Sussex pored over a laptop with staffers at Buckingham Palace to get the wording just right. Afterward, Harry dished out “souvenirs” to staffers, making a “double-edged” comment.
Harry and Meghan rushed their January 2020 announcement after a tabloid leak
In his January 2023 Spare memoir, Harry recounted the events of three years earlier when he and the Duchess of Sussex went public with their decision to leave royal life. On Jan. 8, 2020, they released a statement on Instagram with their intention of stepping “back.”
In the days leading up to the statement, Harry had, as noted in Spare, unsuccessfully tried to beat a British tabloid to it. “Finally, knowing more details were about to be leaked, on January 8 we hunkered down deep inside Buckingham Palace, in one of the main state rooms, with the two most senior members of our staff (via Penguin Random House).
They took turns typing “different phrases” on a laptop, which sat on a “grand wooden desk.” Harry continued: “We wanted to say that we’re taking a reduced role, stepping back but not down,” the now 39-year-old explained. “Hard to get the exact wording, the right tone. Serious, but respectful.”
Harry gave staffers corgi ornaments as a ‘souvenir’ of drafting the exit statement
While on a “trek” during a “longer break,” Harry set off through the palace’s “Belgian Suite” to a hallway nearby the room where the royal family “always gathered for drinks before Christmas lunch.” There stood a tall, beautiful Christmas tree, still brightly lit,” despite the holiday season being over.
“I stood before it, reminiscing,” Harry wrote. “I removed two ornaments, soft little corgis, brought them back to the staffers. Once each. Souvenir of this strange mission, I said.”
Their response? The staffers, Harry recalled “were touched” and “a bit guilty” for taking the ornaments. “I assured them: ‘No one will miss ’em,’” he added, calling his words seemingly “double-edged.”
Harry previously realized Queen Elizabeth’s request about the stepping-back statement was impossible
In the same passage, Harry recalled what his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, had asked him regarding the statement wouldn’t be possible before the tabloid leak and, ultimately, the Jan. 8 announcement.
Harry recalled learning the British tabloid, The Sun, was set to publish a story about him and Meghan “‘stepping away from their royal duties to spend more time in Canada.’”
“We didn’t want that. We didn’t want anyone else breaking our news, twisting our news. We’d have to rush out a statement,” Harry wrote. So he called Queen Elizabeth and “told her we might need to hurry out a statement. She understood. She’d allow it, so long as it didn’t ‘add to speculation.’”
Harry went on to say he hadn’t told Queen Elizabeth “exactly what our statement would say. She didn’t ask. But I also didn’t fully know yet. I gave her the gist, however, and mentioned some of the basic details outlined in the memo Pa had demanded and which she’d seen.”
“The wording needed to be precise. And it needed to be bland — calm,” he continued, saying he and Meghan “didn’t want to assign any blame, didn’t want to stoke the fires. Mustn’t add to [the] speculation. Formidable writing challenge. We soon realized it wasn’t possible; we didn’t have time to get our statement out there first.”
The Sun published the story later the same evening, with Harry describing their depiction of his and Meghan’s departure as a “rollicking, carefree, hedonistic tapping out, rather than a careful retreat and attempt at self-preservation.”
