Buckingham Palace refused to meet demands laid out by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ahead of their appearance at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – and the Sussexes were reportedly seething
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were ‘festering with fury’ after their demands ahead of a major royal event were promptly dismissed by the palace.
It was a time of great public celebration when the late Queen marked her Platinum Jubilee in June 2022 after an incredible 70 years on the throne. But behind closed tensions between the royal family and Harry and Meghan were continuing to escalate. The couple had stepped back as working royals in 2020 and went on to give an explosive tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, greatly damaging relations with his family.
By then, they had also brokered a Netflix deal, reportedly worth $100million – they would go on to release a docu-series which premiered on 8 December 2022.
According to one acclaimed royal biographer, it was their recent Netflix signing that prompted the couple to make a few demands about their appearance at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. Writing in his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors, Tom Bower explained that the Sussexes were left “festering with fury” after the Palace denied all of their demands on the Jubilee weekend.
The couple flew to the Netherlands for the Invictus Games in April 2022 “but festering was their fury that the Palace had refused all of their demands for a prominent role at the Jubilee in return for returning to Britain with their children,” Bower writes.
In his view, it was Meghan who felt the need for them to be on the balcony and in the limelight due to the contract they had with Netflix .
Elsewhere in the book, Bower – dubbed the “Witchfinder General of contemporary biographers”- details how then-Prince Charles “preferred” that since the couple are “private citizens” they would not join the rest of the family on the balcony, nor ride in a royal carriage during the Platinum Jubilee.
In a bid to secure a prominent role during the celebration Harry asked if he could visit the Queen at Windsor, according to the author. But the monarch instead insisted that he visit his father Charles and Camilla before meeting her.
Battling tension caused by their controversial Oprah Winfrey interview, the Sussexes had a fraught but civilised meeting with the Prince of Wales.
The situation was reportedly better as they met the Queen later, but the issue of their appearance on the balcony remained “unresolved”.
In the end, Harry and Meghan kept a low profile throughout the weekend – although they did attend the two biggest events. For the Trooping the Colour parade, the couple watched from the Major General’s Office; as non-working members of the royal family were not invited to attend the traditional balcony appearance during the parade.
And the next day, the duke and duchess made their first official U.K. public appearance since stepping back as senior members of the royal family, attending the National Service of Thanksgiving honouring the Queen at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
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