Prince Harry says his grandmother Queen Elizabeth was “on great form” when he and Meghan Markle saw her recently at Windsor Castle.
“Being with her, it was great,” Harry told NBC Today co-anchor Hoda Kotb. “It was just so nice to see her, you know, she’s on great form, she’s always got a great sense of humor with me, and I’m making sure she’s protected and got the right people around her.”
Harry confirmed to Kotb he had managed to make the queen laugh. “Both Meghan and I had tea with her so it was nice to catch up with her,” he said.
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Harry was speaking to Kotb at the Invictus Games in the Netherlands. He visited the queen en route to the event for wounded, injured, and ill service personnel, which Harry, a former soldier himself, founded in 2014.
His confirmation of his meeting with his grandmother implies an easing of royal tensions, following the couple’s explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey and prior to the publication of Harry’s possibly explosive memoir. Before Harry met with the queen, he reportedly spent around 15 minutes with his father, Prince Charles, allegedly at the insistence of the queen. A source told the Daily Mail that Camilla Parker Bowles, Charles’ wife, joined the meeting midway through.
It was revealed earlier this week that Harry and Meghan had been invited to appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony as part of the queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations but would not take part in more formal events such as Trooping the Color, because they had officially exited their “senior royal” working roles.
Harry also told Kotb that home, for now at least, is Montecito, California, where he lives with Meghan, son Archie, and daughter Lilibet. “Home for me now is for the time being in the States, and it feels that way as well. We’ve been welcomed with open arms and we have such a great community up in Santa Barbara.”
A short section of the interview was shown Tuesday on NBC Nightly News, with the main body scheduled to be shown on Wednesday’s Today.
Read it at NBC/Today
