Silent Rift Between Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle Deepens as Royals Gather in London

Britain’s annual Trooping the Colour ceremony over the weekend again highlighted the distance between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and the rest of the royal family. King Charles, Prince William and Kate Middleton took part in the London event, while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were absent and not on the guest list.

The article says the break began in 2018, shortly after Harry and Meghan’s wedding, and Harry later described the first major awkward moment in his memoir, Spare. He wrote that during Meghan’s first Trooping the Colour appearance, Kate asked what she thought of the ceremony, Meghan joked that it was “colourful,” and then there was, in Harry’s words, a “gaping silence” that “threatened to swallow us all.”

Harry also recounts a later effort by the four of them, Harry, Meghan, William and Kate, to clear the air, but says the meeting failed because the list of grievances was too long. According to him, Kate was upset that Meghan wanted access to her fashion contacts and over the bridesmaids’ dresses at the Sussex wedding. Kate also felt Meghan owed her an apology for commenting on her “baby brain” while she was pregnant. William and Kate were hurt that the young couple did not give them Easter gifts, while Harry and Meghan were angry that William and Kate changed seats at their wedding. Harry wrote, “Nothing about that airing of grievances did any good. We got nowhere.”

The rift only worsened after that. The article notes that in 2022 the couple was still watching the event from Buckingham Palace during the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations, but since then they have not been invited to official events. While the ceremony was held in London last weekend, Harry appeared separately in Germany at an Invictus Games event, where he spoke to supporters and praised Germany’s commitment to honoring veterans.