Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may face resentment from their children in the future over their estrangement from the royal family, according to royal experts. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have remained largely distant from their relatives in the United Kingdom, including King Charles and other senior royals.
Experts now warn that their decision to keep Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet away from extended family could have emotional consequences for the young royals. In a discussion with The Sun, royal commentator Hugo Vickers and writer Samara Gill shared concerns about the long-term impact of this isolation.
“I just think there’s gonna be a terrible revenge when those children grow up,” Vickers said. “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I would be very annoyed if I found that I’d been used in all these posts in a strange way by my parents.” The experts suggested that the children may one day question why they were raised without relationships with their grandparents or cousins, most notably, Prince George, who is second in line to the throne.
“Equally, they’re also going to grow up at one point and discover that they never knew their grandparents, their grandfathers,” Vickers continued. “I mean, Mr Markle, of course, he’s a broken man, but he’s a rather sweet man, actually, and he did a lot for that girl when she was growing up, don’t you think?”
Samara Gill added: “I spoke to him a couple of days ago, actually, and he’s just absolutely still distraught about the fact that he still doesn’t have contact with Meghan.” The emotional distance is not limited to Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, but also applies to Prince Harry’s own family.
Since stepping down from royal duties in 2020 and relocating to California, the Sussexes have had minimal in-person interactions with the rest of the royal family. Vickers concluded that the children may eventually realize the scope of what they missed.
“They will also wake up to realise that they could have been the cousin to Prince George, a future king, and they could have been over here having a nice time with the other children—their cousins. They aren’t gonna know them.”
While Harry and Meghan maintain that their decision to step back from royal life was made to protect their family, critics argue that the long-term effects on Archie and Lilibet’s sense of identity and belonging remain to be seen.