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My choice to go, Harry tells friends
Prince Harry, not his wife Meghan Markle, was the driving force behind the decision to leave the U.K. and step back from front line roles in the royal family, a considerable part of a new biography about the couple will be devoted to claiming.
Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand’s book, Finding Freedom, which is due out in August, will devote many pages to “setting the record straight” over what the global media swiftly dubbed “Megxit.”
A source described as a publishing insider told British newspaper the Sun on Sunday: “That word ‘Megxit’ in particular has always angered Prince Harry. It gives the impression that the decision to walk away from the Royal Family was Meghan’s.
“The reality is Harry drove that decision. The book will make that clear and explain why it had to happen. The truth is Harry had been unhappy for a long, long time.
“He wanted to move in the direction that they did and had been considering it for more than a year.
“Meghan supported Harry’s decision. But there was more than one occasion where she asked him if he was certain it was what he wanted.
“And she always made it clear she would support him in whatever he did.”
The book promises an “honest, up-close, and disarming portrait” of the couple and has been written with the co-operation of their friends. The couple have denied that they have given interviews to the authors.
Source: New claim that Harry and Meghan cost British taxpayers $53 million is “ridiculous”
Harry and Meghan’s friends have pushed back against claims by Norman Baker, writing in the Daily Mail, who estimates that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have cost the British taxpayer an estimated £44 million ($53 million) since they got married.
As a former Government minister, Baker is a credible and long-standing inquiring thorn in the royal family’s side about their costs and also author of . . . And What Do You Do?, an analysis of the royal family's finances, including Prince Charles. He has now done the same to Meghan and Harry, cataloguing the eye-watering estimated sum.
It includes £33.5 million: $38.32 million spent on their wedding, as well as $1.7 million spent refurbishing an apartment for them at Kensington Palace (which the couple never moved into); $2.92 million on Frogmore Cottage; $720,000 for staff; $8.5 million for security; $2.3 million in loss of tax income; and travel costs of $1.23 million.
A friend of Harry’s told The Daily Beast: “It’s combination of extremes, guesses, untruths and a few conspiracy theories in there for good measure.”
The friend described “every single one of the totals” as “inaccurate.”
Harry and William’s relationship “better,” if not “rosy”
This long piece in The Sunday Times on Meghan and Harry’s new life in America by Vanity Fair’s Katie Nicholl claims the couple planned their North American escape when they returned from Africa at the end of last year, a trip during which Meghan famously told ITV that it was “not enough to just survive something.”
Among the article’s other striking claims: Harry wanted to live in Africa but Meghan wasn’t keen, fearing political instability; they dropped the notion of living in Canada after the queen nixed their half-in, half-out vision of royal life; and the longed-for reconciliation between William and Harry may yet happen.
“I don’t think it’s returned to everything being rosy, but it is better,” a friend tells Nicholl. “Hearing their father wasn’t well helped bring them back together and there is now more regular communication.”
The piece also contains an alarming description of Meghan’s life in the U.K.: “She was convinced there was a conspiracy against her and so she basically put herself in isolation when they moved to Frogmore,” says one of her friends. “I think she felt like an outsider from the start. This wasn’t the life she was used to and she wanted out.”
Harry’s true love: camping under the stars
Meghan marked her husband’s birthday last September by recreating their trip to Botswana in 2016. “Last year, for Harry’s birthday, Meghan recreated their Botswana camping adventures in their backyard,” a source tells People. “It’s a place that means so much to them, and to Harry in particular, so Meghan wanted to bring that happy place to him on his day so she set up a tent, got sleeping bags, cooked dinner and recreated Botswana where they fell in love.”
This week in royal history
The Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII, died on May 28, 1972, in Paris. He is infamous for abdicating from the British throne in 1936 because of his love of—and desire to marry—Wallis Simpson. His brother King George VI took over the throne, and he was succeeded buried by his daughter, the queen. The Duke of Windsor is buried at Frogmore, Windsor.
Royal fashion watch
Prince William and Kate Middleton are spending a lot of time holding meetings on social media, even playing virtual bingo with a group of older people, reciting the famous nicknames attached to the numbers. Kensington Palace also released a picture of her designing her “Back to Nature” garden at last year’s Chelsea Flower Show, to flag that this year’s show was happening online. Casual Kate: still exhaustingly glamorous.
Unanswered questions
How much public money do Harry and Meghan deserve? What should they pay back to the British public? Prince Andrew faces fresh questions over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Will he finally make clear what his relationship with the dead pedophile was? Not likely…
