By Page Six | Created at 2024-11-29 23:34:11 | Updated at 2024-11-30 01:54:28
2 hours ago
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will not be spending Christmas with the royal family.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have not received an invitation to this year’s royal gathering at Sandringham, a source tells People.
The last time the two celebrated the holiday with the royals was back in 2018, the year they married.
The snub comes as no surprise, however, as the royal family has continued to distance themselves from Harry, 40, and Meghan, 43. The two were also not invited to the annual Trooping the Colour celebrations back in June.
One month prior, Harry was in the UK for the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games. Despite being back in his home country, he did not meet up with his father, King Charles III.
Page Six exclusively reported that Harry had reached out for over a month to organize a meeting with his dad but was turned down.
Hugo Vickers, a royal expert, noted: “If the king wanted to see Harry, he would find time very easily. You can never be too busy to see your son.”
Harry last saw Charles in February after he dashed from California to the UK to visit his father shortly after news broke that he was diagnosed with cancer.
They reportedly had a brief meeting that lasted only about 30 minutes.
Relations between the Duke of Sussex and the royal family — specifically his father and brother Prince William — have been frosty for several years.
The public first got wind of the bad blood in 2021 when Harry and his “Suits” alum wife gave an explosive interview to Oprah Winfrey. They accused the royal family of ignoring Markle’s pleas for mental health help and alleged that unnamed members questioned the skin color of their then-unborn son Prince Archie.
“Prince Harry knew he’d toss a grenade into the royal family with the interview he and wife Meghan Markle gave to Oprah Winfrey,” a royal expert told Page Six shortly after the interview aired.
“I can swear to you that, and he wanted to rock that boat. Quite why, I don’t understand, but he did want to,” the expert added. “And then he did, and I don’t think he’s surprised by the repercussions or that he regrets it for a moment.”
Furthermore, the publication of Harry’s 2023 memoir, “Spare,” laid bare the frayed kinship between Harry and his family. In the tome, he accused William of jealousy, physical assault and treating Markle poorly, which the Prince of Wales has denied.
The last time the brothers publicly appeared together was following Queen Elizabeth II‘s death in September 2022.
Sources have reported that although their estrangement is “very bad,” it’s not “irreparable.”
