Two days after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle touched off a new round of controversy by allowing themselves and their children to be snuck into King Charles’ country estate for a quick, furtive family reunion after years of bitter estrangement, his older brother, Prince William, and his wife, Kate Middleton, walked themselves and two of their children into Centre Court at Wimbledon for the men’s finals match.
Descending the steps to their seats in the Royal Box on Sunday, the heir to the British throne, the future queen and their two older children, Prince George, 12, and Princess Charlotte, 11, received “a massive,” standing ovation from the crowd as the cameras rolled, as People reported.
The people standing included A-list Hollywood stars and world leaders, all giving the Prince and Princess of Wales a very public show of respect and adulation. Among the celebrities were Nicole Kidman, Anna Wintour, Jennifer Lopez, Andrew Garfield, Tom Hiddleston, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Dustin Hoffman, Sarah Pidgeon, Rami Malek and Ben Stiller.
The event gave William and Kate a chance to show their star power after a week in which royal reporting was dominated by his younger brother’s fractious efforts to rebuild bridges with their father, according to Newsweek’s Jack Royston.
Such a grand, public show of support is probably something that Harry and Meghan would have wanted for themselves during their visit to the U.K. over the past week. Instead, the California-based Duke of Sussex did some solo public engagements for the 2027 Invictus Games and other charities, while his wife only appeared to venture out with him to have a stealthy audience with the king, with Buckingham Palace saying that no images would be released.
Unfortunately, public photo ops with other royalty and A-listers have become increasingly elusive for Harry and Meghan. The once beloved royal couple have instead become divisive figures on the world stage. They are adored by those who like that they spent the past several years criticizing the British royal family but disliked by others — including an increasing majority of the British public — who see them as betraying his family and as trying to cash in on their royal connections in an attempt to fund a multimillionaire lifestyle.
To Sussex critics, Harry also provided evidence of the couple’s reputation for being entitled, attention-seeking “chaos agents” by spending the weeks leading up to his highly anticipated return to the U.K. leaking threats and complaints about his travel plans because he was not getting the level of taxpayer-funded police security he wanted.
Harry further enraged advocates of the free press and the U.K. judiciary by losing a massive court case against the Daily Mail. The judge ruled that he and six co-claimants, including Elton John, failed to prove their allegations that journalists engaged in illegal news-gathering practices.
While Harry railed against the judge for a “white wash” of the case in a public statement, the accused journalists expressed a sense of vindication. One, Charlotte Griffiths, penned a devastating essay about how she came by her stories legally, via Harry and his friends, because she was once part of Harry’s “leaky” social circle.
“The Harry I met in 2011 was very different from the embittered figure we know today, who moans incessantly about his family’s privacy being invaded while making millions invading his family’s privacy,” Griffiths said, referring to Harry’s 2023 memoir “Spare.”
Because of all the “psychodrama” hanging over Harry’s U.K. visit, it didn’t turn out to be “the redemption” tour he hoped for himself and his wife, as American YouTuber and royal journalist Kinsey Schofield said. Because of Harry’s concerns about security, he didn’t have Meghan and their children, Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, join him in the U.K. until he finished his engagements in London and traveled to Birmingham, where he appeared at an event Friday to celebrate the year-long countdown to the Invictus Games in that city.
But as expected by prominent royal journalists, Meghan didn’t accompany him to the Invictus event in Birmingham, or to a children’s hospital on behalf of WellChild, a nonprofit he supports. These journalists, including Griffiths, Schofield and Kate Mansey of The Times, said that Meghan probably wanted to avoid being seen by her husband’s side, especially after he lost his court case.
“Megan mysteriously disappears when Harry is going through difficult times,” Schofield said on the Mark Dolan Show Wednesday. “Meghan is MIA. She’s nowhere to be found.”
“Now that he’s lost his court case, I don’t think she wants to be on the arm of a loser,” Schofield said bluntly.
But Meghan was reportedly by Harry’s side when he brought her and Archie and Lilibet to see his father and stepmother, Camilla, for the first time in four years, as Buckingham Palace revealed. The meeting, “shrouded in secrecy,” took place at Highgrove, Charles’ private Gloucestershire residence, a short drive from Birmingham.
Since Friday, not much has been reported about the meeting, with Buckingham Palace refusing to discuss any further details about what was described as a “private family occasion,” the Daily Mail and other outlets reported. The palace also said no images would be released — which means that neither Harry nor Meghan will be able to publish any happy family photos of themselves or of Archie and Lilibet with the king.
Sussex critics have said that Meghan may have been hoping for a photo op with the king, so that she could use these royal connections to promote her personal brand and her As Ever lifestyle products. She might have even allowed her children’s faces to be seen in public for the first time in years, if it was a photo with their grandfather, critics also say. The former TV actor has become known for regularly using images of her children on social media, but claiming she’s not invading their privacy because she presents photos of them from the back or with their faces obscured.
While many on both sides of the Atlantic praised the king’s meeting with the Sussexes as a triumph of family reunification and “grandfatherly tenderness,” especially for a 77-year-old man who is living with cancer, many others online were harshly critical of the meeting.
Some, including royal journalists like Tom Sykes on his The Royalist Substack, accused the king of giving in to a “petulant” Harry. Sykes and others also said that the king relented to the “emotional blackmail” of a son who appeared to suggest that his father wouldn’t see his grandchildren unless he intervened to make sure he got some things he wanted.
But it looks like there has been some royal clapback to all of the “psychodrama” Harry created before and during his U.K. visit. By granting an audience to Harry, Charles can silence some of the people who’ve criticized him for his past refusal to make time to see his son.
As for William’s attitude about his younger brother, royal authors Robert Jobson and Ingrid Seward told Newsweek he is in no hurry to reconcile with him; William feels Harry betrayed him and Kate for comments he made about them in his memoir. William also was not inclined to let himself be bothered by Harry’s outbursts over the past several weeks, the authors said.
And, the week was capped off by William and Kate’s appearance at Wimbledon, not by Harry and Meghan’s secret meeting with the king. Kate is patron of The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, which hosts Wimbledon, and she, William and their children had their triumphant day at the tennis event, surrounded in the Royal Box by some of the world’s most influential cultural figures.
For the occasion, George matched his father in a suit and tie — despite the heat — while Kate was praised for her sage-green cape dress by Emilia Wickstead and Charlotte for her royal-blue sundress.
“While their style and elegance inevitably caught attention, it was the familial warmth between them that truly stole the show,” Sykes wrote on his Substack. Kate, William and their children “shared plenty of sweet moments throughout the match, chatting, laughing, and appearing to enjoy each other’s company,” Sykes added.
