A royal expert believes Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will need to “suck it up” and attend the king’s coronation for the sake of their brand. According to the expert, it’s very likely the Sussexes will attend the event, even though they haven’t publicly announced their plans.
A spokesperson for Prince Harry and Meghan released a statement confirming they received an invitation to the coronation. “I can confirm the Duke has recently received email correspondence from His Majesty’s office regarding the coronation,” a rep for the Sussexes said (via CNN).
“An immediate decision on whether The Duke and Duchess will attend will not be disclosed by us at this time,” the spokesperson noted. During an interview with Royally Us, royal historian Gareth Russell explained how King Charles “extended the olive branch” to Harry and Meghan.
“This has been a sort of recurring theme in his life, actually. I didn’t know this until I worked last year on the biography of his grandmother, the queen mother,” Russell explained. “And I found out that in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Charles was still pretty young, he was one of the only members of the royal family who was prepared to go over to Paris to visit his great-uncle, Edward VIII, and Wallis Simpson.”
He continued, “He said to the queen’s mother and to the queen, ‘I think that we should be trying to build bridges between this side of the family. [He thought] his uncle and his aunt should be brought back into the fold a bit.”
Russell added, “So there is a past track record of Charles doing things like this and, in that sense, it tracks as consistent with what we know of him as a person.” Kinsey Schofield, the host of the To Di For Daily podcast, shared her thoughts on why Prince Harry and Meghan need to attend the king’s coronation.
She told Fox News Digital, “I’m confident that Harry and Meghan are savvy enough to know that their connection to the royal family is their brand’s strongest selling point, so they have got to suck it up and nurture that element no matter how bruised their egos are.”
Schofield continued, “I initially wondered if Meghan would stay at home in California. But then we saw clearly orchestrated paparazzi photos throughout Los Angeles that let us know Meghan was ready to be front and center again after taking a backseat for Harry’s Spare spree.” According to the expert, the Sussexes’ brand “would take the biggest hit” if the couple didn’t attend the coronation.
“If Harry and Meghan were not to attend the coronation — a long shot — there would undoubtedly be relief felt by senior members of the royal family,” Schofield said. “Harry’s family does not trust the couple and is visibly uncomfortable when they are near. It would be Harry and Meghan’s brand that would take the biggest hit… not their relationship with their family,” she added.