The royal family appears to be offering some subtle shade toward Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Newsweek was first to report late last week that Harry’s 2016 statement confirming his relationship with now wife Meghan, 42, has been removed from the royal family’s website — Royal.uk. Harry, 39, made headlines at the time for issuing a groundbreaking statement via the Kensington Palace communications secretary Jason Knauf.
While it’s unclear exactly when the statement was removed, Newsweek reported that archive website Wayback Machine had a functioning version of the webpage on December 3 of last year. By December 10, it appeared that Harry’s message had been taken down from the site.
Us Weekly has reached out to the royal family for comment.
The Duke of Sussex condemned the “wave of abuse and harassment” directed toward Meghan at the time.
“The past week has seen a line crossed,”the statement read, directly referencing “the outright sexism and racism” that Meghan faced on social media. “Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her.”
Us Weekly confirmed in October 2016 that Harry and Meghan had kicked off their relationship in June of that year. At the time, a source shared that they met “just as friends” initially but eventually “developed romantic interests” with each other. In November 2017, Harry proposed to Meghan and the pair got married in May 2018.
Following their wedding, news that the couple was clashing with the royal family ran rampant. In early 2020, Harry and Meghan announced that they were taking a step back from their roles as senior royals — officially parting ways with the family.
Harry spoke candidly about his estranged relationship with his family over the years. The Duke offered insight into where things stand with his father, King Charles III, and his brother, Prince William, in his 2023 memoir Spare.
“I was trapped but I didn’t know I was trapped,” Harry admitted during his CBS tell-all interview in March 2021. “Trapped within the system like the rest of the family. My father [King Charles III] and my brother are trapped. They don’t get to leave, and I have huge compassion for that.”
Harry’s relationship with the royal family continues to fracture. In March, royal watchers were quick to notice that the Duke and Duchess bio’s on the royal family website had been combined — Harry and Meghan previously had their own longer bio pages on the site.
“As announced in January 2020, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have stepped back as working members of The Royal Family,” a statement at the top of their shared webpage read. “The couple married in St George’s Chapel, Windsor on 19 May 2018 and have two children: Prince Archie of Sussex and Princess Lilibet of Sussex.”
