Harry living in ‘gilded exile in California’, friends say

The Duke of Sussex is living in “gilded exile in California”, a source close to Prince Harry claims.
Some of Prince Harry’s oldest friends have spoken to The Times just weeks out from his 40th birthday, on September 15.
They paint a sad picture of the duke’s new life in Montecito with wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their two children.
READ MORE: Meghan says Lilibet, three, has ‘found her voice’
Despite being father to Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, Prince Harry remains unfulfilled with how things have turned out, they claim.
“Harry was always in a rush and fixated on getting married,” a source who advised Prince Harry inside the royal family for many years told The Sunday Times.
“He wanted so badly to create his own identity, build his own family, carve out his own thing.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back as senior working royals in 2020 and moved to California soon after.
They had requested a half-in, half-out approach – allowing them to be financially independent while still representing the monarchy on official duties.
But that proposal was rejected by Queen Elizabeth II.
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Prince Harry and Meghan have since forged multi-million deals with Netflix and Spotify (which ended prematurely last year) and recently embarked on a four-day tour of Colombia, which many compared to a mini royal tour.
But a source who has known Prince Harry since his teenage years says his life in California is not what the duke had imagined.
“Now we’ve seen it all play out, what has that left him with? On the surface, an enviable lifestyle – but for the Harry I know, I can’t imagine that gilded exile in California is where he wanted to end up,” the source claimed to the publication.
Another of Prince Harry’s oldest friends added: “Things haven’t turned out how he wanted. I think he misses being over here [in Britain] desperately and wants to be admired more”.
The relationship between Prince Harry and his family back in the UK remains as strained as ever.
It is believed that when Prince Harry and Meghan reached out to Prince William and Catherine privately after her cancer diagnosis was made public, the contact was not reciprocated.
Friends of William say the future king has made it clear he does not want his brother at his coronation, when the time comes.
READ MORE: Inside Prince Harry and Meghan’s Montecito life
Prince Harry spent just 24 hours in London during his father’s coronation in May 2023, with Meghan declining an invitation to the historic event.
The couple were last in the UK, together, when the Queen died in September 2022.
While they were included in a number of events with the royal family during the mourning period leading up to the funeral, the Sussexes were snubbed from a palace briefing the night before deeply wounding Harry.
The couple were initially invited to a reception held at Buckingham Palace the night before the funeral, for visiting dignitaries and heads of state hosted by King Charles and Queen Camilla.
But their invitation was rescinded at the last minute when the event was deemed for working members of the family only.
What hurt Harry the most, friends say, was that he and Meghan were excluded from a family briefing on the funeral held before the reception began.
And they did not receive the briefing notes about the funeral on email until 11pm that night.
A friend said: “The King made some really bad decisions – it was conveyed that he didn’t want them there. For f***’s sake, this was a global reception for his grandmother, and as her grandson, he should have been there.
“There was a funeral briefing for the whole family at the palace just before the reception, which would have meant Harry and Meghan going to the briefing then having to leave the palace as all the guests were arriving and other family members were staying. So in the end, they didn’t go.”
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