In the wake of losing a legal battle to retain publicly funded security, Prince Harry said that he would no longer be returning to the United Kingdom and that his strained relationship with the Royal Family was so bad that the Duke of Sussex was no longer talking with his father, King Charles III.
The statements came during an interview with the BBC after he lost an appeal to keep the British public funding his security costs that he filed last month, something he said had strained relations between him and his father, NBC News reported.
“He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff,” Harry said.
Without the security, he added, “I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point.”
He added that he did not know how long his father, who is currently undergoing treatment for cancer, has to live.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex currently reside in California, where they moved in 2020.
After the move was made, his security status as downgraded because he was no longer a full-time royal, which means that his security would only be provided on a case-by case basis, not as a round-the-clock matter.
Harry’s legal team argued that he “inherited a security risk at birth, for life” and that he “served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats.”
The couple, court documents added, were “forced to step back” from their royal duties “as they considered they were not being protected by the institution.”
Should Prince Harry leave the United States?
After the Friday ruling which upheld the decision that he was no longer entitled to blanket protection, Buckingham Palace defended its position.
“All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion,” a statement read.
In the court’s ruling, Judge Sir Geoffrey Vos said that Harry “was in effect stepping in and out of the cohort of protection provided by” the commission set up to protect the royals.
“Outside the U.K. he was outside the cohort, but when in the U.K. his security would be considered as appropriate depending on the circumstances,” he said.
“It was impossible, I said in my judgement to say that this reasoning was illogical or inappropriate. Indeed it seemed sensible.”
The decision over security is hardly the only issue driving a wedge between the Duke of Sussex and his father or the rest of the royal family, however.
In 2023, Harry released a tell-all memoir titled “Spare” — a reference to the term “an heir and a spare,” meaning that a royal would want at least two children in case one were to die or be otherwise unable to take the throne.
That was hardly the only controversial thing in the book, which painted both King Charles and his brother, the Prince of Wales, in a negative light.
In 2024, numerous reports emerged that Harry’s life in America hadn’t turned out as planned.
“He’s an angry boy. Things haven’t turned out how he wanted,” an unnamed friend told the British tabloids.
“I think he misses being over here [in Britain] desperately and wants to be admired more. Anyone who knows him feels he’d rather be top of the pops here with everyone loving him, as they do with William and Kate.”
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
