On 15 September, Prince Harry turns 40. It’s unlikely that his seminal birthday will be marked with bells and whistles on the royal family’s social media accounts, as is usually the case for senior royals. In fact, it’s questionable whether his family will even contact him privately.
When the Sussexes cut loose from the monarchy in 2020 to make a new life in America, they gained financial independence and the freedom to shape the lives of their young family in whatever way they saw fit. But in the process, after the brickbats, ‘truth bombs’ and accusations in the Oprah sit-down, Netflix documentary and Harry’s biography Spare, he apparently became estranged from his older brother, strained the relationship with his father to breaking point and left many old friends and trusted consiglieres behind.
Some lauded his remarkable resilience and strength of character by throwing out the royal rule book, telling his truth and embarking on a totally new chapter. Others mocked him for being merely the latest
celebrity bauble in the notoriously fickle La La Land of Hollywood. Now, those closest to the Duke say he’s at a crossroads, torn between battling old demons and moving forward with his life as a doting father and devoted husband.
‘Is Harry happy?’ An old friend laughs when I pose this question and repeats it back to me with a wry question mark. ‘Yeah, I think he is. He still feels very strongly that it was totally the right decision to leave the UK; he had to protect his wife and Archie. Now, he dotes on the kids and loves nothing better than playing with them in the garden, feeding the chickens and taking them to the beach with the dogs.
‘Is there sadness there – at what he’s lost, relationships seemingly broken beyond repair? Yes, but he genuinely feels he had no other option. The security question and the fact he feels his wife and children are not safe in Britain consumes him.’
Family life in the Californian enclave of Montecito, where Harry and Meghan bought a £11 million nine-bedroom house and count singer Katy Perry and actress Cameron Diaz as friends and neighbours, is gilded but also quietly domestic.
Prince Harry may have lobbied hard for his children, Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three, to keep their titles, yet at their private day school and nursery they are merely Archie and Lili – scions of a famous family amongst many others. Theirs is an all-American childhood with hugs and hotdogs; totally removed from the austere British stiff upper lip boarding school tradition of their father. Certainly, being a
hands-on dad and ‘showering them with affection’ quite literally drives Harry (he’s often on the school run) and will continue to do so as he enters his fifth decade.
He was 12 when his mother Princess Diana died, aged 36, and steering his children through their teenage years (and not sending them away as he was) resonates, as his mother was unable to do that for him. Ditto, being a faithful and emotionally available husband to Meghan, whom he credits as ‘saving’ him from his ‘dysfunctional’ birth family. But, where his professional life takes him is more tricky.
The Invictus Games, founded 10 years ago by Harry as a Paralympics-style competition for injured military veterans, is still going strong but the achievements of the Sussexes’ not-for-profit Archewell Foundation (motto: ‘Show Up, Do Good’) is more opaque.
Patrick Jephson, Princess Diana’s former private secretary, knew Harry as a young man and now asks, ‘What is Harry for? No one can really answer that and I’m not sure if he can. There is a basic inconsistency with what he says he wants and what he’s doing. He says he wants a private life, but if you want that freedom, you get a job, drop out of public life, keep your mouth shut and certainly don’t criticise the constitution of your adopted country.’
Service, Harry says, is what drives him. Describing himself on his Sussex.com website as a ‘humanitarian…mental health advocate and environmental campaigner’, he even cites Spare as an act of service. ‘I definitely don’t see myself as a victim,’ Harry said, when asked last year about the criticism of his book. ‘To be able to share the things of my life that I think are important feels good – to me, it feels like an act of service. If we can encourage others to be vulnerable themselves and to their family, the world will be a better place.’
Yet many cannot forgive Harry’s decision to air the family’s laundry (and, it is notable that he has reportedly declined to add any updates for the book’s paperback release, a common practice to boost secondary sales, which has been touted by some as something of an olive branch to the Palace).
While William and Harry both attended the funeral of their uncle, Lord Robert Fellowes, last week, with Harry flying in from LA for the service in Norfolk, the brothers reportedly did not speak and avoided each other while there. There are suggestions that, when the time comes, Harry wouldn’t even be invited to his coronation – while Charles apparently rarely takes his calls.
A friend of both brothers says, ‘Harry and Meghan could have left with dignity and decency and not tarnished the institution. The conclusion is they have made money from trashing his family.’ Yet Harry still feels that he can use his position to do some good, such as ‘tours’ to Nigeria and Colombia, where the spotlight can be turned on important causes.
The old friend says, ‘He still feels he can make a difference – he wants to do, not say. To use his public position to serve. But looking at things a bit more objectively, it’s difficult to see how he can do that without utilising his birthright. He doesn’t really like the ‘celebrity’ aspect of living in California, but Meghan is more realistic. She is the one that realises they have to make a living.’
Harry has never tried to conceal one of the main missions he has set himself in life – that of bringing the tabloid press to heel. Having won substantial damages in his phone hacking case against the Daily
Mirror, next year sees the Duke turn his sights on The Sun and the Daily Mail. Those cases, involving allegations of unlawful information gathering, are still in their administrative stages, with trials not due
until next year at the earliest.
But ‘slaying dragons’, as Harry has termed it, has contributed to the fallout with his family. In an interview this summer with ITV News, Harry said, ‘I have made it very clear that this is something that needs to be
done, it would be nice if we did it as a family. It has caused part of a rift.’
Is that something that can be healed going forward, despite Harry’s gilded exile? Unlikely. Harry feels he has his own family now – and they, and his next decade, are firmly rooted across the Pond.