{"id":8735,"date":"2026-09-08T23:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T23:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8735"},"modified":"2026-09-08T23:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T23:39:14","slug":"surprised-harry-and-meghan-blasted-for-all-the-surprises-theyve-launched-since-megxit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8735","title":{"rendered":"‘Surprised’ Harry and Meghan blasted for all the surprises they’ve launched since Megxit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s possible that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were trying to drum up some sympathy Tuesday by having their spokesperson suggest it wasn\u2019t very courteous or kind-hearted of his father, King Charles III, to authorize the public release of a letter that restates what was stated when they left the United Kingdom six years ago.<\/p>\n

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The letter affirmed an agreement made with the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 \u2014 that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex became nonworking members of the royal family as soon as they gave up royal duties and moved to the United States. Then and now, it means they should be treated as private citizens and they do not represent the king or the British government when they appear in public.<\/p>\n

But on Tuesday, the couple complained that no one consulted with them about the letter before it went out, the BBC reported. Their spokesperson said they \u201cwere a little surprised not to have been told about this in advance.\u201d The Sun also reported that the couple apparently took issue with the letter calling them \u201cprivate citizens\u201d instead of referring to them as \u201cpublic figures.\u201d<\/p>\n

It turns out that the Sussexes in fact received some notice \u2014 about an hour\u2019s notice\u2013\u00a0 before the letter was released to the media, shortly after 3 p.m. Monday, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail reported. The purpose of the letter was to clarify their status to various senior government and military officials, now that they have moved back to the U.K. after six years in California.<\/p>\n

Prominent royal commentators and people online were amused, annoyed or more by the couple\u2019s belief that they should have been consulted before the letter went out.<\/p>\n

Among other things, Tom Sykes, who writes for the Daily Beast editor and The Royalist Substack, said on his\u00a0 YouTube channel that it was \u201csuch and arrogant and self-centered\u201d thing to make an issue of, given that the letter affirmed the status quo. He also said Harry\u2019s spat with his father and Buckingham Palace over the release of the letter threatened to overshadow the fourth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth\u2019s death and the milestone news Tuesday that Prince George reported to his first day of school at Eton College.<\/p>\n

Sykes also was among those who accused Harry and Meghan of hypocrisy, noting that they didn\u2019t tell the royal family \u201cin advance\u201d that their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey would feature their allegations of racism against certain unnamed members family members. Sykes said the allegation, which Harry later tried to walk back on, \u201chung over the royal family for months,\u201d including when Prince Philip, the queen\u2019s husband and Harry\u2019s grandfather, was dying.<\/p>\n

Sykes also said the Sussexes also didn\u2019t consult with Harry\u2019s relatives before they depicted them as a \u201ccold imperial, ruthless machine\u201d in their six-part Netlix documentary or before Harry published his 2023 memoir \u201cSpare,\u201d in which he alleged his brother, Prince William, physically attacked him and made various unflattering claims about the king, his sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, and stepmother, Queen Camilla.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe level of self absorption and arrogance\u201d would be funny, Sykes said, if Harry and Meghan\u2019s complaint about not being consulted about the letter wasn\u2019t \u201cso tiresome\u201d and if their return didn\u2019t present the monarchy with a potential \u201cconstitutional crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Daily Mail\u2019s senior editor-at-lager Richard Kay explained that the letter was issued in response to \u201cthe high level of confusion and uncertainty\u201d created by Harry and Meghan\u2019s sudden return to the U.K. \u2014 after reportedly giving the king fewer than two weeks notice. \u201cYesterday\u2019s intervention will be seen as an essential move by the king to preserve the cohesion of an institution which was undermined in the first place by the Sussexes flouncing off to California,\u201d Kay wrote.<\/p>\n

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Since their return to the U.K., the couple appear to have been stoking much of confusion by having their friends leak details of their plans to certain media outlets, including their plans to step up their charity work, Kay said. Even more concerning, according to Kay, people close to the king also have been irritated by talk about the Sussexes establishing \u201csome kind of rival court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around social media, some people thought it could have been nice for the sake of family for the Sussexes to have received a heads-up about the letter. Then again, the Sussexes became estranged from the royal family after they dropped many surprises and \u201cbombshells\u201d in their interviews and other statements since 2020, so family unity should perhaps not be at the forefront of the king\u2019s concerns, others asked.<\/p>\n

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Otherwise, people similarly wondered why \u201ctheir input would even be necessary\u201d in official communication sent by the king\u2019s household to senior members of the government, as one person asked in response to an X post by The Telegraph.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince WHEN does the King need to collaborate with private citizens??\u201d asked another.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe King isn\u2019t required to check with them before releasing any statements,\u201d said an American woman with the @Britishroyaltea handle. \u201cAnd it\u2019s nothing new. He\u2019s just reaffirming the Sandringham summit. For once, I wish Harry & Meghan would keep quiet. They don\u2019t need to clap back at everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The so-called Sandringham summit refers to an agreement that Harry and Meghan signed on to when they gave up royal duties in 2020 and left the U.K. to seek their fortune and a different kind of fame in the United States. The agreement, overseen by the late queen, ruled out any \u201chalf-in and half-out\u201d status \u2014 the idea that Harry and Meghan could still carry out royal duties while pursuing outside, commercial activities.<\/p>\n

Someone else on X declared, \u201cKarma is a (expletive),\u201d while sharing a 2020 account of how Harry and Meghan gave the queen \u201cvirtually no advance notice\u201d before launching a website in January of that year that laid out their \u201cmanifesto\u201d \u2014 or their \u201cwish list\u201d \u2014 for leaving royal duties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe queen and other royals were completely blindsided,\u201d reports in January 2020 said. Although it was reported that Harry had sent general ideas to his family about stepping back from royal duties, the queen explicitly asked him \u201cto not make any public statements until a formal family discussion could take place.\u201d According to accounts, the couple ignored this request and launched the website anyway, \u201cleaving the monarch with zero formal warning before the news went public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Inman Down Under: From breaching MCG gates to discovering Fitzroy Gardens<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex thought they should have been consulted before the king authorized the release of a letter that affirmed their non-official status in the U.K.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-things-to-do"],"yoast_head":"\n‘Surprised’ Harry and Meghan blasted for all the surprises they’ve launched since Megxit - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=8735\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"‘Surprised’ Harry and Meghan blasted for all the surprises they’ve launched since Megxit - 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