Any royal watchers hoping that 2023 could be the year that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry reunite with the royal family for Christmas will have to keep wishing. According to a new report from Vanity Fair, Markle and Harry will not be at the traditional holiday celebration in Sandringham, England, in part, because Prince William and Kate Middleton refuse to be in the same room as them.
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Vanity Fair reports that Harry, Markle, and their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, will not be in England for Christmas. A royal insider explained that this is because there is “hostility” toward the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who stepped down as senior working members of the royal family in January 2020. Markle and Harry last went to Christmas at Sandringham in 2018.
“The king would love nothing more than to have Christmas with his sons and all his grandchildren, but it’s not that simple and there is no chance the Sussexes will be coming,” the insider told Vanity Fair, referring to King Charles III. “It would make things very difficult because there is still so much hostility towards Harry and Meghan, particularly from the Prince and Princess of Wales.” The source added that “Charles is also deeply nervous about the risks of conversations being leaked by the Sussex camp, which is why there have been very few of them.”
There is also said to be a strain on these relationships due to the release of the new book Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival by Omid Scobie. A version of the book was published in The Netherlands that claimed that the two members of the royal family who infamously questioned Archie’s skin color prior to his birth were Charles and Middleton. “The king finds these suggestions about racism extraordinary and frankly unbelievable. It is all so far removed from the truth and what was actually said,” a source said.
Further, a source claimed that William and Kate don’t want to be in the same room as Harry and Markle, “let alone spend Christmas with them.” Reportedly, the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis, will spend part of Christmas Day with the royals and the other part with the Middleton family. Vanity Fair reports that there will also be some new attendees at the royal Christmas celebration this year: Queen Camilla’s children, Tom Parker-Bowles and Laura Lopes, and Camilla’s sister, Annabel Elliot.
It was previously reported that if Harry and Markle were at royal Christmas, William and Middleton would not attend. A source told The Times in November, “I can’t imagine the Sussexes would decline an invitation to spend time with His Majesty,” but added, “As of yet, there have not been any invitations for the holidays.”
A source claiming to be a friend of William’s told The Daily Beast that the way Harry has spoken out about the royal family since stepping down has made his brother not want to be around him. “The whole idea of them coming for Christmas was typically narcissistic and delusional. There is no way William or Kate would want them there after what he wrote in his book,” the source said. “Would you want to sit down for a slap-up lunch with someone who had basically called you an [expletive] in public? It would be a total humiliation. William and Kate are never, ever going to sign up for that, and Charles wouldn’t ask them to.”
Charles, though, reportedly would like to spend more time with Harry and with his children. A source told the Daily Mail in November that maybe he would see the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at New Year’s instead: “It would certainly have the advantage of killing two birds with one stone; extending an olive branch to one son without causing difficulty to the other.”
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