Prince Harry is opening up about why he doesn’t feel safe bringing his wife Meghan Markle back to the U.K.
In an interview for ITV’s documentary Tabloids on Trial, the Duke of Sussex spoke about safety concerns he has for his wife and children.
“It’s still dangerous, and all it takes is one lone actor, one person who reads this stuff to act on what they have read,” Harry said. “And whether it’s a knife or acid, whatever it is, these are things that are of genuine concern for me. It’s one of the reasons why I won’t bring my wife back to this country.”
Markle has been on the receiving end of torrents of online hate since she married into the British royal family in 2018, egged on by British tabloids that ran negative and sometimes racist stories about the Duchess, the Sussexes have said.
In 2022, Neil Basu, the former head of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, told Channel 4 News that the threats against the Duchess of Sussex were “disgusting and very real.”
“We had teams investigating it. People have been prosecuted for those threats,” Basu said. “If you’d seen the stuff that was written and you were receiving it … you would feel under threat all of the time.”
After Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back as working royals in 2020, the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (RAVEC) revoked their right to U.K. police security. Harry offered to cover the costs of security himself, but a High Court judge shot down the bid. Prince Harry plans to appeal the decision.
In a statement to the court, Prince Harry said he felt it was necessary to have police security in the U.K. to protect his children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
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“The U.K. is my home. The U.K. is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the United States,” Harry said. “That cannot happen if there is no possibility to keep them safe when they are on U.K. soil.”
“I can’t put my wife in danger like that, and given my experiences in life, I’m reluctant to unnecessarily put myself in harm’s way too,” he added.
While Prince Harry has returned to the U.K. numerous times over recent years to attend major events like his father’s coronation, Meghan Markle has only been back a handful of times. Her last visit was for Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. The last time their children were in the U.K. was for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.