Prince Harry ‘feels lonely & estranged’ from family facing 6th Christmas apart after ‘NOT receiving Sandringham invite’
PRINCE Harry has reportedly not been invited to spend Christmas at Sandringham with the rest of the royal family, according to a royal expert.
The Duke of Sussex last spent the festive period with his family six years ago, and has only done two with wife Meghan Markle.
Former royal correspondent Emily Andrews wrote in Woman: “Prince Harry is keen to spend the Christmas holidays in the UK with his wife and children — but Meghan wants to stay in the US.
“It’s a tricky time for Harry — he hasn’t spent Christmas here for six years and he could be forgiven for feeling rather lonely and estranged from his Windsor relatives.”
Typically the royal family flock to Sandringham for the Christmas period and attend church together on Christmas day.
Prince Harry and Meghan have spent a total of two Christmases together with the extended royal family for the traditional celebrations.
The first was in 2017 when they were an engaged couple, and the second was in 2018 following their royal wedding.
They spent Christmas privately in 2019 on Vancouver Island, just before they announced they were stepping down as senior royals in 2020.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have reportedly been extended an invite to spend Christmas with Harry’s uncle Charles Spencer at Althorp House in Northamptonshire.
However, they would be missing out on seeing their extended family.
Emily added: “All the royals will gather at Sandringham in December, and I’m told that all the cousins, such as Eugenie, Beatrice, Zara and Peter Phillips, all look forward to the fun.”
Meghan, 43, is said to be reluctant to fly over to the UK amid security woes and fears over a negative reaction from the public.
Editor-in-chief of Majesty Magazine Ingrid Seward told Fabulous: “I think the Duchess of Sussex’s views on coming back to the UK are probably pretty negative.
“I don’t imagine you would want to come back to a country where you are so universally disliked.
“And also there’s the problem of the security which is still not solved, and Harry says he won’t bring his wife and children back here until he feels that he is in a secure position.
“I do think that Harry and Meghan have a dilemma with their family life, because the children are getting older, and the children are probably absolutely intrigued to know what their cousins are like. They wouldn’t remember them.
“And I think that maybe an invitation from Charles Spencer might be attractive, and they would meet other cousins.”
Ingrid claimed that “hunkering down in California” with their kids Archie, four, and Lilibet, two, is “more their style” than coming over to England for Christmas, but added “it is possible.”
She continued: “But then it’s going to raise a lot of questions. Is Harry going to see his father?
It’s a tricky time for Harry — he hasn’t spent Christmas here for six years and he could be forgiven for feeling rather lonely and estranged from his Windsor relatives
Emily Andrews
“Is he going to see any other members of his family?
“So I would think at the moment they’re undecided. They seem to make a lot of fairly last minute decisions in their lives.”
A timeline of Prince Harry's family feud
The first hints of friction reportedly came after William was introduced to Meghan when she was staying at Kensington Palace.
Once she’d returned home to Canada, William and Harry sat down for a brother-to-brother chat.
He knew Harry was already head-over-heels for her but it has been claimed he advised him to take it slowly.
The younger prince reportedly didn’t take too kindly to the advice, with one royal source saying he “went mental”.
Then in June 2019 Harry and Meghan officially split off from the charity they shared with William and Kate.
The Royal Foundation will be divided between the Sussexes and Cambridges as the couples focus on their own separate charitable endeavours.
Prince William and Prince Harry first established the Royal Foundation in 2009 before Kate joined two years later shortly after their engagement was announced.
The trio would often appear together at events and the Foundation had huge successes with projects like the Invictus Games for injured veterans and the mental health Heads Together campaign.
The Royal Foundation said the decision was made following the conclusion of a review into its structure – but added both couples will continue to work together in the future.
Harry and Meg were living in close proximity to Kate and Wills within the Kensington Palace estate, but they switched to Frogmore Cottage in Windsor before baby Archie was born.
The move further increased rumours of a fallout.
Harry also hinted in his ITV documentary “Harry and Meghan, An African Journey” that he and his brother had grown apart.
In 2021, Harry and Meghan give their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey where Harry accused his dad of cutting him off financially.
Harry then jetted back to UK to join William in unveiling a statue to their mother Princess Diana in the grounds of Kensington Palace. But sources claimed William didn’t want to attend the memorial amid their ongoing rift.
In 2022, just before their grandmother the Queen died, sources claimed Kate acts as a “peacemaker” between the brothers.
Harry claimed his brother “knocked him to the floor” during an argument about Meghan, in his memoir.
In Spare, Harry said William branded Meghan “rude” and “difficult” during a row.
Harry alleged William “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and … knocked me to the floor”.
He said he was left with a visible injury to his back following the argument in 2019 at Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace, where he was living at the time.
In January this year, Harry flew in to be with Charles after the monarch’s shock cancer diagnosis.
Harry flew back to the US the following day – without seeing Wills.
In May he visited the UK for a three-day visit without seeing King Charles or Prince William.
Meghan’s Christmas plans
The royal expert claimed that Meghan’s hesitations about security and reaction give her a “good excuse” for her to not come over to England for Christmas, and she is likely to spend it instead with mum Doria Ragland in California.
This comes as royal experts have told The Sun that Meghan and Harry are ‘going their own ways’ as they increasingly live ‘separate lives’.
Speaking on our first ever Royal Exclusive Live show, Arthur Edwards and Jennie Bond lifted the lid on the power couple’s recent time apart.
Sun legend Arthur revealed how the pair are ‘doing things separately now’ after failing to be spotted together in three weeks.
Meanwhile Jennie, a royal correspondent for the last 35 years, also revealed: “Meghan is not popular.
“She doesn’t want to come back and they are going their own ways, to some extent”.
The Sussexes’ confidante insisted: “It is normal for couples to not do everything together.”