This Thursday, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will visit Nottingham, England, for a day of engagements.
No, you’re not reading an old article from 2017 about the first joint outing the pair made after announcing their engagement, bright-eyed and basking in their honeymoon phase with the public. This is happening in 2026, and it marks the Sussexes’ first joint appearance since returning to live in the U.K. in August.
It’s hard to know who would be more astonished by this development: The wounded, angry couple who fled a cruel tabloid press and a suffocating institution in 2020, ready to make their case to Oprah? Or the public, who’ve watched with varying degrees of goodwill the roller-coaster highs and lows of Harry and Meghan’s past six years in California, trying to make a living as non-royal royals?
Since the couple landed in the U.K., there has certainly been plenty of noise around them: Reports their children had to switch schools after two days because the paparazzi were stalking the school run; claims Meghan’s own social media video showing scenes from the family’s idyllic new British life enabled the press to triangulate the exact house they were living in.
Prince Harry has been out and about on quasi-royal engagements, making an emotional speech at the WellChild Awards, and playing pickleball with veterans at an Invictus event in Birmingham. Meghan has maintained a lower profile, seen only in paparazzi shots going to the pub with her husband, until she stepped out for a high-profile afternoon tea with Malala Yousafzai in London last week.
Nearly two months into their second go at British life, though, few questions have been resolved about this surprising plot twist: Why did Harry and Meghan come back? How long are they planning to stay? What’s the state of their relationship with the royal family after their accusatory interviews and Harry’s no-holds-barred memoir, “Spare”? Did Meghan really get offered that part in “The Gentlemen” TV series?
In an effort to answer some of these questions, we enlisted two royal experts — the kind with ears to the ground, and real sources with insider insight — to break down what’s really happening with the Sussexes right now.
Did Harry and Meghan’s U.K. return blindside everyone?
“Like most royal watchers, I was stunned,” said Christopher Andersen, journalist and author of several bestselling royal biographies, including this year’s “Kate!” about the current Princess of Wales. “Certainly, the red carpet was not rolled out for them. No invitation had been extended.”
Andersen believes that Harry and Meghan’s decision to return to the U.K. was an impulsive move based on a misreading of King Charles’ state of mind when they briefly met during a trip to the U.K. over the summer.
“It seems that during their recent visit with the King in July, Harry and Meghan misinterpreted his grandfatherly overtures to Archie and Lilibet as some sort of sign that they would be welcomed back into the royal fold,” said Andersen. “But instead, the King and especially Prince William were blindsided by the Sussexes’ abrupt decision to return to the U.K.”
Dan Wakeford, the British former editor-in-chief of People and Us Weekly who now runs his own site Celebrity Intelligence, was less gobsmacked than most.
He said he felt a “small, smug ‘I told you so,’” when the news broke. “We reported at Celebrity Intelligence back in April that Harry was edging home and that Meghan was considering acting again,” Wakeford said. “What surprised me was how quietly they pulled it off behind the scenes.”
How long will Harry and Meghan stay in England?
Despite the fact that Harry and Meghan have enrolled their kids in school, neither Wakeford nor Andersen thinks this is a permanent move.
“Watch the property, not the press. They’ve kept Montecito and Portugal, which is the celebrity version of keeping your ex’s number,” said Wakeford, referring to the couple’s 9-bedroom California home and their recently revealed vacation house in Europe. “My read is that this is an open-ended trial.”
He speculates that two factors could swing this one way or the other: If they get their government-funded security back, and whether the two brothers ever end their feud.
“If William doesn’t make up with Harry, I can’t see them staying beyond the King’s lifetime,” Wakeford said.
Andersen gives them an even shorter timeline: He suspects they’ll be headed back stateside before the holidays.
“The Sussexes have not been invited to spend Christmas with the rest of the royals at Sandringham, whereas the rest of the family RSVP’d months ago,” he said. “That is the kind of obvious, major snub that Harry and Meghan can only find hurtful and humiliating.”
On Monday, People reported that the Sussexes will be spending both American Thanksgiving and Christmas with Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, at a location of her choosing but likely California.
Is the Sussexes’ England move more about business or family?
Andersen believes the Sussex brand is “in desperate need of a refresh,” and sees this move as an attempt to recalibrate their public image and make money.
“The Sussexes’ commercial appeal hinges solely on their connection to the world’s biggest global brand: Britain’s monarchy. But for years now they have been living an entirely separate life in Montecito, far beyond the royal orbit,” he said. “As time goes by, that vital link to the magic and mystique of England’s royal family continues to fade — and along with it the Sussexes’ big media deals and various money-making schemes.”
He says that when they arrived back in the U.K., “they hit the ground running, reaching out to business contacts that they had left behind when they departed for California.”
Was Meghan really going to act in Netflix’s “The Gentlemen”?
Shortly after news of the move broke, a story emerged that the real reason the family were moving back to the U.K. was so that Meghan could return to acting with a part in Guy Ritchie’s “The Gentlemen,” which premiered its second season around that time. Journalist Tina Brown claimed that the offer was “withdrawn” after “intense backlash” to Meghan playing the role.
The truth, according to Wakeford? “There really were conversations with a casting agent about a part, but that was it: one conversation, not an offer,” he said. “Her camp had reasons to let the story run. ‘In demand for a Netflix drama’ beats another headline about her jam business. It also let her look like she was steering the move rather than just tagging along with Harry.”
Why was the official royal reaction so cold?
Soon after Harry and Meghan moved back to the U.K., the palace sent a letter on behalf of King Charles to government officials in which he made it clear that his younger son and his wife were not back to rejoin the family business, and that they were still private citizens who did not represent the royal family in any way.
It was hardly the reaction of a father welcoming his long-lost son home, but it didn’t surprise Andersen, who noted the “you’re in or you’re out” hard line that the late Queen Elizabeth took with Meghan and Harry. “As warm and cuddly as the King sometimes seems these days, he is a creature of duty and obligation. King Charles has the same unbending, rule-following attitude the late queen had.”
Wakeford takes a similar view.
“(The letter) was the palace equivalent of a warm hug and a firm handshake. Charles wants his grandchildren nearby, but the institution learned in 2020 that ambiguity is expensive,” he said. “The letter made sure nobody, from the Home Office to a charity looking for a royal patron, mistook living nearby for a return to duty.”
Do William or Kate have any interest in reconciliation?
If Prince Harry was hoping he could mend fences with his brother while living nearby, it’s not looking promising.
“William is livid. The last thing he needs at the moment is Harry and Meghan on his doorstep, knocking to get back into the royal family’s good graces,” said Andersen. “For her part, Kate tried valiantly for years to bring the brothers together. She was always very close to Harry, who called her the sister he never had.”
She gave up, he said, when Prince Harry gave an interview last year — in which he shared his hopes for familial reconciliation — claiming he didn’t know how long his father, who’s been treated for cancer since 2024, had left to live.
Since Kate had recently battled cancer herself, “Harry’s remark just seemed incredibly thoughtless, even cruel,” said Andersen. “That was the burning of the final bridge.”
How is Harry and Meghan’s relationship with the British press?
One of the primary reasons the couple gave for leaving the U.K. was the vicious tabloid press: Meghan said that the relentlessly negative coverage and her resulting unhappiness in England caused her to consider suicide, while Prince Harry has spent the past several years suing the major tabloids, with varying results.
Has anything changed six years on?
“The U.K. tabloids tend to run anything Harry and Meghan do through a negative filter, and the couple don’t do much to stop that happening,” Wakeford said.
Case in point: Meghan’s decision to post a video of her family frolicking in their new home amid geographic details that enabled the press to figure out where they were living. “A mistake, but an understandable one. Meghan’s whole post-royal model is controlling her own image, and Instagram is where she does it,” said Wakeford. “A photographer who has shot the royals for three decades told us the pack worked out the location from that video within hours. Turning off the comments doesn’t turn off the countryside.”
The bigger blunder, Wakeford said, was the timing; it came right as the couple were trying to argue for publicly funded security. “It’s hard to share your country walks while telling the Home Office your whereabouts are a security risk.”
Wakeford has been surprised by how quickly the British public has “hardened” when it comes to who should be paying for these non-working royals’ security while in the U.K., something that’s currently under official review. “Goodwill toward the children is real. Patience with the adults is thinner.”
What’s the strategy behind the couple’s public appearances?
Until this week, most of Harry and Meghan’s U.K. outings had been notable for three reasons: His always seemed official, hers were low-key and personal, and they were always separate.
Wakeford noted that this behaviour has cued “the ‘living separate lives’ stories, every one resting on unnamed sources,” but he doesn’t believe it’s evidence of trouble within the marriage. Instead, he sees it is a deliberate strategy.
“Britain has never really warmed to Meghan. Harry is another matter. People here still remember the boy walking behind his mother’s coffin,” Wakeford said. “When he turns up alone, the headline is about sick children and veterans. When they arrive together, the headline is about them.”
He believes Harry is “rebuilding his standing, one engagement at a time,” while Meghan focuses on her As Ever brand and her own friends from before she was a royal.
What’s Harry and Meghan’s long-term plan?
It’s not just the public who’s confused; the royal watchers say people who know Meghan and Harry in private are equally unsure about their long game.
“People who have known them find it hard to make sense of it all,” said Wakeford.
There are a few reasons for the couple to stay in England through 2027: One is that the Invictus Games will take place in Birmingham next July. The other is that August 31, 2027, marks the 30th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, and it’s rumoured that Prince Harry will be participating in a documentary about his mother.
Wakeford said the documentary is real, as is Harry’s long-standing desire to come home and be close to his family once more. But he believes this decision isn’t just his.
“It really comes down to whether Meghan wants to stay. They have very different goals and are driven by different things, so it depends on which of them compromises,” Wakeford said. “For now, Meghan seems to have compromised for Harry.”
