As Prince Harry and Meghan return to U.K., remember why they left in the first place

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are reportedly moving back across the pond, six years after their dramatic exit from the Royal family stunned Americans and Britons and exposed scandal in Buckingham Palace.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will return to British soil along with their two young children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, for an extended period starting this month, People reported last week. While the pair’s decision may be unsurprising to some, Prince Harry and Meghan made clear in 2020 that their personal Brexit was because of several factors, ranging from severe scrutiny by the British media to alleged racism and bullying from the royal family.

Meghan, during the couple’s memorable tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, spoke plainly of her experience among the royals: “I just didn’t want to be alive anymore. And that was very clear and real and frightening.”

King Charles III is aware of the plans for his son and Meghan‘s U.K. return and “welcomes the opportunity to see more of the Sussex family in a private and personal capacity,” People reported. The spouses are also said to retain their property in the affluent Santa Barbara enclave of Montecito, and vacation home in Portugal while also making a “private, non-royal” home in Britain. This retrospective tracks the early years of the highly scrutinized pair’s relationship, the fallout from their royal exit, their media ventures and more.

“Personally, I love a great love story.”

That’s what Meghan Markle, formerly of “Suits” fame, told Vanity Fair in October 2017. By then, more than a year of media speculation and rumors surrounded the L.A.-raised actor and activist’s romance with Britain’s Prince Harry, younger brother to Prince William and the second son of Charles and the late Princess Diana, who was killed at age 36 in 1997 after the car she was in crashed while fleeing paparazzi in Paris.

Meghan and Prince Harry kindled a romance in 2016 at that year’s edition of his veteran-centered Invictus Games, held in Orlando. Markle quickly found herself in the beloved “bad boy” Royal’s orbit — including the tireless swarm of tabloids and paparazzi who have captured almost his every move from childhood. The pair was already subject to media frenzy early in their relationship, prompting Harry via Buckingham Palace to plead with reporters to respect his then-girlfriend’s privacy and to condemn the “outright sexism and racism” in online comments. Markle had also remarked early on that she was disheartened that so much coverage of her romance focused on her ethnicity.

News of their engagement in 2017 further raised eyebrows among the public and even more so with established British tabloids, including the Daily Mail, which had once described the pair’s relationship as a “VERY unlikely romance.” In the context of the longstanding (and almost exclusively white) British monarchy, Meghan was an outsider: American, mixed-race (she is half white and half Black), an outspoken public figure and a divorcée (she was previously married to film producer Trevor Engelson).

How surprising is it that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are returning to the U.K.? Not surprising at all.

Prince Harry and Meghan married in May 2018 and were named Duke and Duchess of Sussex. At the time, Prince Harry was sixth in line to the British throne. During the wedding ceremony, the Rev. Michael Bruce Curry heralded the pair’s union with calls for justice and equality — amid the country’s early steps into leaving the European Union — and made references to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

“When love is the way, there’s plenty of room for all of God’s children,” Curry said during the ceremony. “When love is the way, we actually treat each other — well, like we are actually family.”

Between the newlyweds and the British royals, family ties proved only so strong.

Marrying into British royalty did not shield Meghan from criticism, speculation and attacks by the press — it appeared to have the opposite effect. Sound familiar?

Source: Read the original article on www.latimes.com