Sept. 4, 2026

Could Harry and Meghan Become ‘Private Royals Plus’? Palace Faces a New Sussex Problem

Show Notes
Transcript

A new idea for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s life in Britain is emerging: “private royals plus,” with the Sussexes remaining non-working royals while potentially joining King Charles and the family for occasions such as Christmas at Sandringham. But Prince William and Princess Catherine may present the biggest obstacle. Royal insiders also warn that Harry and Meghan’s UK appearances will now require greater coordination with Buckingham Palace, while critics demand strict boundaries preventing any revival of the old half-in, half-out model. Plus, Mark Dolan attacks the Sussexes’ latest reinvention, speculation continues about Meghan’s acting future and another possible book, and the New York Times asks whether America ever really needed actual royalty.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/palace-intrigue-harry-meghan-the-crown-royal-family-news-and-gossip--4522904/support.

Palace Intrigue is a daily British royal family podcast covering King Charles, Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Kate Middleton and the House of Windsor. New episodes every day. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:03.250 --> 00:00:12.769
Hello and welcome to Palace Intrigue. I am your host,

2
00:00:12.830 --> 00:00:15.730
Mark Francis. One of the ideas for Harry and Meghan

3
00:00:15.890 --> 00:00:19.690
is being called Private Royals Plus. Harry and Meghan would

4
00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:24.289
remain non-working royals and largely private citizens, but could potentially

5
00:00:24.329 --> 00:00:29.010
appear alongside the royal family at selected family occasions. One

6
00:00:29.030 --> 00:00:31.949
source tells the Sunday Times, It needs all sides to

7
00:00:32.009 --> 00:00:35.950
agree a template for private royals plus. It needs them

8
00:00:36.030 --> 00:00:38.740
to be much more private than working and be seen

9
00:00:38.820 --> 00:00:43.060
at family occasions like Christmas and Sandringham. The problem is

10
00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:45.780
William and Kate. As the source puts it, that requires

11
00:00:45.799 --> 00:00:47.719
William and Catherine to say yes please and how on

12
00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:50.909
earth does that happen? Just saying it out loud sounds implausible.

13
00:00:52.390 --> 00:00:55.210
GB News columnist Lee Cohen says Buckingham Palace should treat

14
00:00:55.250 --> 00:00:58.689
Harry and Meghan's return to Britain as an institutional issue

15
00:00:58.729 --> 00:01:02.049
rather than simply a family matter. Cohen argues that the

16
00:01:02.090 --> 00:01:05.250
Sussex's past criticism of the royal family combined with commercial

17
00:01:05.310 --> 00:01:09.010
projects that benefited from the royal connections means the palace

18
00:01:09.049 --> 00:01:12.060
needs to establish unmistakable boundaries now that they are returning

19
00:01:12.099 --> 00:01:16.260
to Britain. Cohen proposes six rules for the palace. First,

20
00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:18.299
Harry and Meghan should not be allowed to return as

21
00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:23.239
working royals or revive the half-in, half-out arrangement they originally sought. Second,

22
00:01:23.319 --> 00:01:26.519
Cohen says there should be no royal residences, official privileges

23
00:01:26.719 --> 00:01:30.189
or special protocol treatment. Any relationship with Charles or other

24
00:01:30.230 --> 00:01:33.549
family members should remain private rather than becoming a route

25
00:01:33.629 --> 00:01:37.810
back into the institution. Third, security should continue to be

26
00:01:37.870 --> 00:01:42.909
determined through the existing RAVEC process, without automatic taxpayer-funded protection

27
00:01:42.969 --> 00:01:46.989
simply because the Sussexes are spending more time in Britain. Fourth,

28
00:01:47.430 --> 00:01:50.069
Buckingham Palace should keep its public statements about Harry and

29
00:01:50.129 --> 00:01:54.609
Meghan extremely limited. Cohen believes the palace should simply reinforce

30
00:01:54.650 --> 00:01:58.609
that their return does not change their status as non-working royals. Fifth,

31
00:01:59.049 --> 00:02:01.750
William and Catherine should be protected from being drawn into appearances,

32
00:02:02.090 --> 00:02:05.659
meetings or other situations simply because Harry and Meghan are

33
00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:10.180
once again nearby. And six, Cohen says the late Queen

34
00:02:10.280 --> 00:02:14.240
Elizabeth's original rejection of a half-in, half-out monarchy should remain

35
00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:17.699
the governing principle. His central argument is that Harry and

36
00:02:17.719 --> 00:02:20.560
Meghan have every right to live in Britain as private citizens,

37
00:02:20.909 --> 00:02:23.969
establish a home and educate their children there. What Cohen

38
00:02:24.009 --> 00:02:26.849
opposes is allowing their physical return to become a gradual

39
00:02:26.889 --> 00:02:30.990
return to royal status without taking on royal responsibilities. He writes,

40
00:02:31.349 --> 00:02:33.569
the late queen got the principal right. You are either

41
00:02:33.889 --> 00:02:39.330
in or you are out. In the iNews, Richard Palmer writes,

42
00:02:39.569 --> 00:02:41.229
Harry and Meghan now have to deal with the palace,

43
00:02:41.250 --> 00:02:44.250
whether they like it or not. While visiting a charity

44
00:02:44.289 --> 00:02:47.250
in Los Angeles may go largely unnoticed, there will be

45
00:02:47.409 --> 00:02:49.780
far more media attention when they carry out visits in

46
00:02:49.810 --> 00:02:52.719
the UK, especially if one of the working royal family

47
00:02:52.759 --> 00:02:55.539
is doing something similar and possibly trying to communicate a

48
00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:59.770
different message, sources said. The Sussexes and the royal family

49
00:02:59.810 --> 00:03:02.689
will play it by ear for now, the iPaper understands.

50
00:03:03.409 --> 00:03:06.349
But some courtiers recognise that the potential for diary clashes

51
00:03:06.389 --> 00:03:09.560
will intensify when Harry and Meghan are in Britain carrying

52
00:03:09.590 --> 00:03:12.409
out engagements in the same time zone. They'll have to

53
00:03:12.460 --> 00:03:15.979
deal with that, one royal source said. The long-time royal

54
00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:19.199
watcher Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, agreed. He said,

55
00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:21.800
I think the pecking order will no longer apply to them,

56
00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:25.659
but suggested behind-the-scenes coordination would have to step up when

57
00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:29.120
the Sussexes are in Britain. The goalposts have moved across

58
00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:31.919
the world, he said. It would make sense to coordinate

59
00:03:32.139 --> 00:03:36.840
wherever possible. YouTuber Mark Dolan is pouring cold water on

60
00:03:36.860 --> 00:03:39.860
the Guy Ritchie story, saying, Guy Ritchie is a very

61
00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:42.259
talented director, very successful, but I will say that he

62
00:03:42.300 --> 00:03:45.210
doesn't write very good parts for women. The female parts

63
00:03:45.250 --> 00:03:48.310
in his shows are very two-dimensional because he's macho and

64
00:03:48.330 --> 00:03:50.870
he likes the action and he wants pistols and guns

65
00:03:50.909 --> 00:03:52.770
and all the rest of it. And the only parts

66
00:03:52.930 --> 00:03:56.129
in The Gentleman are drug dealers. So if Megan's going

67
00:03:56.169 --> 00:03:58.039
to be in The Gentleman, Is she going to be

68
00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:00.759
a drug dealer? And what is the drug she's selling?

69
00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:04.860
Flower sprinkles? It's interesting that what would have been a

70
00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:07.819
bit of good PR over this talk about Meghan starring

71
00:04:07.860 --> 00:04:10.509
in a Netflix show ends up in denials and people saying,

72
00:04:10.990 --> 00:04:13.810
nothing to see here. It's so familiar. We had a

73
00:04:13.830 --> 00:04:15.909
war of the words over whether Harry was offered accommodation

74
00:04:15.930 --> 00:04:18.009
at Buckingham Palace. Just a few weeks ago, we had

75
00:04:18.029 --> 00:04:21.310
the war of words with the Kardashians over the alleged opt-in,

76
00:04:21.670 --> 00:04:25.579
opt-out in the invitation for photographs, which the Kardashians denied.

77
00:04:26.269 --> 00:04:28.170
We had the war of words with Martha Stewart over

78
00:04:28.209 --> 00:04:30.689
whether Meghan was bragging about her reunion with King Charles.

79
00:04:31.529 --> 00:04:35.269
Dolan said, well, let your viewers decide. Who do you believe?

80
00:04:35.750 --> 00:04:39.810
Martha Stewart, an icon of American culture? Or Meghan Markle, drifter-in-chief?

81
00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:42.660
I think we know the answer to that one. He

82
00:04:42.699 --> 00:04:45.779
described their PR team as horrible, before joking, I would

83
00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:49.259
rather be Vladimir Putin's publicist than the Sussexes right now.

84
00:04:50.500 --> 00:04:52.480
He also argued that Harry and Meghan have struggled to

85
00:04:52.519 --> 00:04:56.269
establish a consistent identity, adding, Meghan presented herself as a

86
00:04:56.310 --> 00:04:59.970
global influencer. The messaging was clear then. I've given up acting.

87
00:05:00.089 --> 00:05:02.990
I don't do any of that trivial stuff anymore. I'm

88
00:05:03.009 --> 00:05:05.720
going to make the world a better place. And we

89
00:05:05.740 --> 00:05:08.800
got excruciating speeches from Harry and Meghan about international affairs,

90
00:05:08.839 --> 00:05:12.579
about democracy, about free speech, about online safety. But that

91
00:05:12.620 --> 00:05:15.730
lasted five minutes because she wasn't taken seriously in Washington

92
00:05:15.750 --> 00:05:19.529
and was quickly dropped by the Obamas. That whole business

93
00:05:19.589 --> 00:05:22.589
is now a basket case, not a pillowcase. with Ted

94
00:05:22.610 --> 00:05:25.420
Sarandos having not just diluted the broadcast deal with Netflix,

95
00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:28.540
but completely severed ties with Meghan for that business partnership

96
00:05:28.579 --> 00:05:31.240
as well. So what the couple do is they say

97
00:05:31.339 --> 00:05:33.360
one thing and then they do another, and the greatest

98
00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:35.620
U-turn of all, a screeching U-turn that would have been

99
00:05:35.639 --> 00:05:40.009
Lewis Hamilton blushing, is the UK return. They spun their

100
00:05:40.110 --> 00:05:42.189
Mexit project and their move to the US as being,

101
00:05:42.589 --> 00:05:45.550
you know, England's horrible, full of racists, we escaped the country,

102
00:05:46.029 --> 00:05:48.149
now they've got to somehow spin it in a country

103
00:05:48.189 --> 00:05:51.029
they don't like, they're going to return to, Harry in

104
00:05:51.050 --> 00:05:53.089
his book Spare said it was so awful being Prince

105
00:05:53.110 --> 00:05:55.769
Harry in the gilded cage, in the spotlight from birth.

106
00:05:56.250 --> 00:05:58.670
What does he call his children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet?

107
00:05:59.379 --> 00:06:01.199
I don't know who is advising Harry and Meghan when

108
00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:03.660
it comes to public relations, but no one is buying

109
00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:05.680
this UK return as a good news story for them.

110
00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:09.279
It's an act of desperation. But we've been here before,

111
00:06:09.420 --> 00:06:13.459
because everything Sussex related always ends in human misery, suffering

112
00:06:13.720 --> 00:06:18.560
and bad headlines. The pair are irredeemably toxic. Dolan questioned

113
00:06:18.600 --> 00:06:21.839
what professional role Meghan could establish for herself while spending

114
00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:25.779
extended periods in Britain. There's no business to be made

115
00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:27.959
in the UK. No one's buying the flower sprinkles or

116
00:06:27.980 --> 00:06:31.019
the overpriced rosÃ© or the spread in England. And also

117
00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:33.839
the movie roles. The entertainment industry is tiny in the

118
00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:36.300
UK by comparison to the US, so if she wants

119
00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:38.379
to get back to acting, she'll have to spend large

120
00:06:38.500 --> 00:06:41.439
chunks of the year in America. And then Dolan raised

121
00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:45.319
the possibility that will inevitably make royal watchers nervous. Another

122
00:06:45.500 --> 00:06:48.259
Sussex book. We know that there was so much in

123
00:06:48.300 --> 00:06:50.689
the original manuscript of Spare that was edited out to

124
00:06:50.730 --> 00:06:53.290
protect the royal family. All of that times a hundred

125
00:06:53.410 --> 00:06:56.209
would be in Meghan's book. You have allowed the fox

126
00:06:56.269 --> 00:07:00.889
back in the henhouse, and feathers will fly. More palace

127
00:07:00.910 --> 00:07:08.420
in just a moment. In the New York Times, Robert

128
00:07:08.459 --> 00:07:11.639
Given writes under the headline, Goodbye Harry and Meghan, turns

129
00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:15.980
out we didn't need actual royals. Per Given, In certain

130
00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:19.379
corners of the American psyche, for reasons that often confound me,

131
00:07:19.459 --> 00:07:22.879
many of my fellow residents of this great democracy, 250

132
00:07:22.879 --> 00:07:26.579
years after it shook off its monarchical yoke, are constantly

133
00:07:26.620 --> 00:07:30.470
describing our fellow citizens as American royals. There have always

134
00:07:30.490 --> 00:07:33.750
been families, the Vanderbilts, the Kennedys, and the Bushes, who

135
00:07:33.790 --> 00:07:38.069
claim to a rarefied level of generational wealth, power, and

136
00:07:38.129 --> 00:07:41.329
prestige has meant that some Americans want to worship them

137
00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:44.660
like they have the divine right to rule. They needed

138
00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:47.459
to proclaim John F. Kennedy Jr. our prince, as well

139
00:07:47.480 --> 00:07:50.540
as the country's most eligible bachelor and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy

140
00:07:50.579 --> 00:07:54.050
his princess. However reluctant she was to perform that role,

141
00:07:54.829 --> 00:07:57.850
this year when Taylor Swift married Travis Kelsey, the occasion

142
00:07:57.870 --> 00:08:00.990
was characterized as an American royal wedding. The coverage was

143
00:08:01.029 --> 00:08:04.100
a feeding frenzy, even though the feasting was mostly limited

144
00:08:04.129 --> 00:08:08.439
to live feeds from the decidedly unfairly-tailed castle-like exterior of

145
00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:12.670
Madison Square Garden. When we describe our fellow citizens as

146
00:08:12.709 --> 00:08:15.649
American royals, the implication is that we're gifting them with

147
00:08:15.790 --> 00:08:19.009
an enhanced stature and a more durable place in history.

148
00:08:19.629 --> 00:08:21.610
But if we've learned anything from the public agonies of

149
00:08:21.649 --> 00:08:25.230
Harry and Meghan, it's just how meaningless, yet burdensome, actual

150
00:08:25.329 --> 00:08:29.079
royal lineage can be. So now I watch with a

151
00:08:29.100 --> 00:08:32.129
combination of exasperation, confusion, and even a bit of sadness

152
00:08:32.149 --> 00:08:35.220
when they return to England. Harry and Meghan have struggled

153
00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:38.659
to right-size their relationship with the royal family, with popular culture,

154
00:08:38.879 --> 00:08:42.169
and with themselves. They have heaved flamethrowers at Prince William

155
00:08:42.200 --> 00:08:45.879
and Princess Kate. Their Netflix dabblings have been less than impressive.

156
00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:49.679
Now they are stuck in the in-between. They are no

157
00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:52.080
longer fully royal, but they have little currency in the

158
00:08:52.100 --> 00:08:56.059
celebrity ecosystem. What is Harry's talent? What gives his life

159
00:08:56.120 --> 00:08:59.220
meaning out in the world, separate from his family? Meghan

160
00:08:59.240 --> 00:09:01.600
had whiffs of a possible acting role in England in

161
00:09:01.639 --> 00:09:05.299
Guy Ritchie's The Gentleman, which is about attempts by a

162
00:09:05.460 --> 00:09:09.840
down-at-hill British aristocratic family to restore its fortunes by getting

163
00:09:09.860 --> 00:09:12.620
into the drug trade. But that seems to have evaporated,

164
00:09:12.639 --> 00:09:14.379
and I hope she can find her way back to acting,

165
00:09:14.840 --> 00:09:18.480
or realize her goal of becoming a lifestyle doyen. Perhaps

166
00:09:18.500 --> 00:09:21.460
she can become a celebrity, a real A-lister. Harry could

167
00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:24.600
warm himself in her celebrity glow. And he can finally

168
00:09:24.659 --> 00:09:28.039
feel what it's like to be better than, more than just,

169
00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:31.679
a royal. And there you have it. If you'd like

170
00:09:31.710 --> 00:09:35.129
to email us, our address is thepalaceintrigue at gmail.com. If

171
00:09:35.149 --> 00:09:37.490
you're on Spotify, leave us a comment. If you're on Apple,

172
00:09:37.549 --> 00:09:40.389
hit that button that says Listen uninterrupted up there and

173
00:09:40.409 --> 00:09:42.809
get the show commercial free for just five bucks a month.

174
00:09:43.350 --> 00:09:45.500
I'm Mark Francis. My thanks to John McDermott. This is

175
00:09:45.580 --> 00:09:47.299
Palace Intrigue. Good day.

Could Harry and Meghan Become ‘Private Royals Plus’? Palace Faces a New Sussex Problem

Listen On

Recent Episodes