Royal Family to ‘Avoid’ Repeating ‘Awkward’ Sussex ‘Moment’ With Prince Harry at Coronation: ‘It Doesn’t Look Good for Anyone’
TL;DR:
- The royal family will want to avoid a “repeat” of the 2020 Commonwealth Day service at the coronation, according to a royal expert.
- To do so, Prince Harry will likely sit with a “safe group of people” so they don’t look “stilted and awkward on camera.”
- Prince Harry previously said the reunion with his family at the 2020 Commonwealth Day service “looked cold” and “felt cold.”
King Charles III’s coronation won’t look anything like the 2020 Commonwealth Day service where Prince Harry’s concerned. That is if the royal family has anything to say about it. How, according to an expert, they’ll “avoid” having another “stilted” reunion with the Duke of Sussex at the coronation.
Prince Harry is expected to sit with a ‘safe group of people’ at the coronation
Where Harry sits at the coronation is, in short, a delicate matter. Will he sit 10 rows back as some reports have said? Or will he be closer to his father and brother, Prince William?
Harry’s seating assignment won’t be revealed until the ceremony gets underway at Westminster Abbey on May 6. However, it’s been said the 38-year-old could sit with relatives he’s currently on better terms with.
“I mean, he’s still close to some members of the family,” Phillip Schofield, co-host of This Morning, said (via Express). “There are members who he hasn’t had an issue with. I’m assuming he’ll be seated near them, so that’s a safe group of people.”
A guest on the program, royal correspondent Omid Scobie explained the royal family won’t want any on-camera awkwardness involving Harry.
“You would hope that someone has taken that into account,” Scobie said. “Maybe he’s with the York girls, with [Princess] Beatrice and [Princess] Eugenie. People that he can have non-uncomfortable conversations with so it doesn’t look so stilted and awkward on camera.”
Royal family won’t want ‘repeat’ of ‘cold’ 2020 Commonwealth Day service images of Prince Harry
“I think that the palace are really keen not to have a repeat of that moment because it doesn’t look good for anyone,” Scobie said in reference to the 2020 Commonwealth Day service.
It marked Harry and Meghan Markle’s last official appearance as “working” royals. The pair sat behind King Charles, Camilla Parker Bowles, Kate Middleton, and the now-Prince of Wales.
As Harry shared in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan docuseries, it was “like living through a soap opera.”
“I felt really distant from my family,” he said. “So much of how they operate is about what it looks like, rather than what it feels like. And it looked cold. But it also felt cold.”
Beatrice and Eugenie’s appearance with Piers Morgan has left Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ‘astonished,’ coronation interactions ‘will be interesting’
Beatrice and Eugenie may not be “safe” to seat Harry with at the coronation after all. In the weeks leading up to the ceremony, the sisters were spotted at a London pub with Piers Morgan, an outspoken Sussex critic.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex reportedly reacted with disbelief. A source told OK! Magazine: “After everything Piers has said about them as a couple – especially Meghan, who he’s called so many names — Harry and Meghan are astonished that they’ve gone behind their backs. It will be interesting to see how Harry interacts with his cousins during the coronation.”
See where Harry sits, and if the royal family can side-step a 2020 Commonwealth Day “repeat,” on May 6 when King Charles is crowned.
