…6 years after ditching royal life for California
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will return to the UK at the end of the month for “an extended period,” Page Six can confirm.
We’re also told that their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, will be enrolled at a school there.
“The palace was made aware of the move,” a source confirmed to Page Six Wednesday, noting that King Charles III was told on Sunday that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would be returning to Britain.
“I know that Charles is the reason they are moving back,” an insider told Page Six.
Our source added that while Charles, 77, “looks forward” to spending more time with Harry, 41, and Markle, 45, in a personal capacity, he made it clear that their role and status as private individuals and “non-working members” of the royal family will not change.
Additionally, the King — who announced his cancer diagnosis in Feburary 2024 — is strict about there being “no half-in, half-out option” for working royals — upholding the rule previously held by his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II.
Page Six has reached out to the Palace for comment.
According to the Sun, which was first to report the news Wednesday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will move into “a non-royal residence,” where they will “continue with their business enterprises.”
Back in January 2020, Prince Harry and Markle shocked the world when they announced they were stepping away from their duties as “senior” members of the royal family and moving to Montecito, California, in a move dubbed “Megxit.”
“After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution,” they said in a statement at the time.
“We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen,” they added, referencing Queen Elizabeth II, who died two years later in September 2022.
The couple added that they would “balance [their] time between the United Kingdom and North America” while “continuing to honour [their] duty” to the royal family.
They stressed that this move would allow them to raise son Archie, now 7, with “an appreciation for the royal tradition” while “providing [their] family with the space to focus on the next chapter.” (The two later welcomed daughter Lilibet, now 5.)
In March 2021, about a year after they settled into their new home in the US, Harry and Markle sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a tell-all interview, in which the “Suits” alum discussed her tortured relationship with the royal family.
Markle admitted at the time that she had “naively” entered the royal brood and only later realized that “there’s the family, then there’s the people that are running the institution … those are two separate things.”
Elsewhere in the bombshell interview, the former actress claimed she wasn’t “being protected” and that people were allegedly “willing to lie to protect other members of the family,” which led to her feeling lonely and isolated.
“I just didn’t want to be alive anymore,” she confessed to Winfrey, while detailing how her life consistently made headlines for the British tabloids.
Perhaps the biggest allegation, though, was her claim that some members of the royal family had concerns over “how dark [Archie’s] skin might be when he was born,” as Markle is biracial.
At the time, Prince William defended the royal family against claims the institution had any racial prejudices, bluntly saying the royals are “very much not a racist family.”
Queen Elizabeth II also addressed the claims in a statement reacting to the sit-down interview with Winfrey, saying that “the whole family is saddened” and that the “issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning.”
She also noted that “recollections” of the events Harry and Markle had discussed “may vary.”
In the years since that interview, Harry and Markle have continued to speak out against the royal family.
In his 2023 memoir, “Spare,” the Duke of Sussex accused his brother, William, of physically attacking him. He further alleged that his father, Charles, called him a “spare” when he was born — sparking the title of the book, a reference to Harry being far down the line of succession to the British throne.
Royal expert Katie Nicholl told Page Six around the time of Harry’s book hitting shelves that, per her sources, William was “privately seething and devastated by what Harry has done,” adding that he “cannot forgive Harry for the things that he’s written.”
Despite the turmoil it caused, Page Six previously reported that Harry had “no regrets” about the bombshell revelations in his book.
“Harry said he was really happy about the success of the book and the reaction to it,” an insider told us at the time. “He said he had no regrets about any of the revelations, and he’s relieved to have got his story out into the world.”
Given their actions, Harry and Meghan have largely fallen out with some members of the royal family over the years — particularly Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton.
When the Sussexes reunited with King Charles in July during their visit to the UK — which marked the first time His Royal Highness had seen his grandchildren in four years — there was “no contact” with the Waleses. We were told that their relationship was “so broken.”
While Harry has returned to the UK numerous times over the years for other visits and important appearances, Markle — and their children — have mostly remained in the US.
Last year, in a BBC interview, the royal said he “would love reconciliation” with members of the royal family. He made the revelation while expressing his devastation over a court denying his appeal after his family’s publicly funded security was stripped away.
“I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point,” he said. “I miss parts of the UK, of course I do. And I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show, you know, my children.”
Harry pointed out that the “risks” and “threats” his family faces are why they required increased protection.
“If anything was to happen to me, my wife or my father’s grandchildren — if anything was to happen to them — look where the responsibility lies, you know?” he added. “So this is a duty of care that has been completely thrown out the window.”
This, of course, was a full year before Harry, Meghan and their children traveled to the UK during a European getaway. Aside from visiting Charles during the trip, the foursome also paid a visit to the childhood home of Harry and William’s mother, Princess Diana.
They visited the ancestral estate of Diana’s family, Althorp, in photos shared to Instagram at the time.
The late princess, who died in 1997 in a car crash in Paris at the age of 36, is buried on a secluded island called Oval Lake at Althorp at her family’s private 15,000-acre estate located in Northamptonshire, England. Charles Spencer, Diana’s younger brother, currently owns the property.
During their time in the US, Harry and Markle have raised their family in their $14 million megamansion and rubbed shoulders with Hollywood elite while attempting to establish themselves as a brand.
Markle, in particular, has tried her hand at multiple business ventures — including several podcasting attempts, her Emmy-nominated Netflix cooking show, “With Love, Meghan,” and launching her As Ever company.
The couple’s $20 million Spotify podcasting deal ended in 2023 after only one season of her show, “Archetypes,” while Netflix ended their partnership with Markle in March.
Royal commentator Kinsey Schofield, host of YouTube’s “Kinsey Schofield Unfiltered,” recently told Page Six that her advice to the couple after their troubled track record with business ventures — most recently with Markle’s documentary “Cookie Queen” bombing at the box office — would be to “disappear professionally for a little while.”
Perhaps, with their move back to the UK, they’re doing just that.
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