Meghan and Harry return to UK: Reasons for Sussexes’ heading back to royal ‘lions den’

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are returning to the lions’ den, six years after announcing their departure from the royal fold.

Prince Harry and wife Meghan’s shock 2020 decision — dubbed Megxit by the British press — to step back as senior working members of the royal family and move to California, caused an explosive rift between Harry and his father, King Charles (then the prince of Wales) and brother Prince William.

On Thursday it was reported that Harry and Meghan would end their self-imposed exile. They are expected to return to the UK later this month, but it won’t be to Frogmore Cottage, the five-bedroom home on Windsor Castle Estate they were “asked to vacate” in 2022.

Instead, it is expected they will live in a “non-royal residence” outside London. The couple’s children, Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, are reportedly already enrolled to begin school at the start of the UK school year in September.

The UK press reported the King was “blindsided” by the news of the Sussexes’ impending return, having only been informed by Harry of the move on Sunday.

It comes after a turbulent few years for the royal family. Harry’s contact with his father has been sparse in recent years with not even the news of the King’s cancer diagnosis enough to heal the rift between the pair.

A crucial turning point in the estrangement came in July, when the King and Queen Camilla met with the Sussexes at his private residence, Highgrove House in Gloucestershire. It was the first time the King had seen his grandchildren since the late Queen Elizabeth’s platinum jubilee celebrations in 2022.

That peacemaking trip followed an admission by Harry to the BBC last year that he missed the country where he is still fifth in line to the throne.

Despite the thaw in relations, not every member of the royal family is likely to be thrilled at Harry and Meghan’s homecoming, given the couple had publicly accused the institution of racism.

Royal biographer and commentator Victoria Arbiter told The Nightly an apology could help soothe old hurts.

“Meghan and Harry are a soap opera, a salacious scandal that they themselves have helped create. They are leaving the safe fold of Montecito and going straight back into the lions’ den,” Ms Arbiter said.

“They should behave with humility and culpability and above all apologise to the British public and to the royal family when they make their return.

“Every party has made mistakes, but Harry and Meghan were dropping grenades over Buckingham Palace and then gaslighting the world into saying they had not done so.”

Since their dramatic departure from the UK the Sussexes have kept themselves busy in order to pay the mortgage on their $20 million, nine-bedroom, 16-bathroom Montecito mansion, signing big deals with Netflix and Spotify, writing biographies and filming a tell-all interview with Oprah.

It was in that 2021 interview that Meghan made the bombshell claim that there had been “concerns and conversations” raised by unnamed royals during her pregnancy over the colour of Prince Archie’s skin.

In the same interview, Meghan said she had contemplated suicide.

While Harry and Charles’ relationship looks to be on the mend, his once rock-solid relationship with his brother William — now the Prince of Wales — remains in pieces.

Months on from the explosive Oprah interview, things went from bad to worse, when the Duke released his autobiography Spare, in which he claimed he had been physically attacked by his brother in 2019 after William called Meghan “difficult, rude and abrasive”.

“The brothers have zero relationship. Kate and William were betrayed by Harry when he was throwing out bombs while they were privately dealing with the Princess’s cancer,” Ms Arbiter said.

Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams suggested to the Daily Mail that Harry may have been motivated to make his move now, while the King still occupied the throne.

“This is actually an extremely serious situation. What they have done is very clearly chosen King Charles’s reign to do this knowing their options might be very limited when, and if, William becomes king,” he said.

“I strongly suspect that William would look very closely at their titles and possibly the titles of their children. William will see this as total proof they couldn’t be trusted for a single second.”

Harry can also expect a frosty reception from the British public, who will have been stung by his claims that safety concerns prohibited his wife and children from visiting the UK.

In May 2025, after losing his appeal to reinstate his family’s taxpayer-funded security, Harry told the BBC: “I can’t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point.”

“Harry has burnt many bridges, but the one that will no doubt take the longest to repair, is the one he has with the public. The Duke has always been popular with the public, which is why they were so hurt by his behaviour,” Ms Arbiter said.

“Harry is someone who frequently travels to third world countries for charity work with his wife, and yet he felt he couldn’t come to the UK. That hurt the public deeply.”

The Prince has also frequently spoken about lacking privacy and facing intense media scrutiny in the UK, comparing his life there to a mix between “The Truman Show and being in a zoo”.

Harry lost further points with the British public for his perceived hypocrisy when he and Meghan released an eponymously titled Netflix documentary series, which thrust the couple back into the spotlight that they claimed to have desperately wanted to evade.

Meghan followed that with a lifestyle series for the streamer called With Love, Meghan. That program, which was part of what was supposed to be a five-year, $146m collaboration, was cancelled earlier this year after two seasons and a Christmas special.

A similarly lucrative deal struck with Spotify in 2020 fell apart after a single 12-episode run of Meghan’s podcast series Archetypes.

Branching out from media work, the Duchess went on to set up her own lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard, later rebranded As Ever following a trademark dispute.

The couple has maintained private patronages and charitable support for organisations assisting vulnerable young people.