Six years after their shattering break with the royal family and their move to California, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan will return to live in the United Kingdom, British media announced on Wednesday.
After years of accusations and heartbreak, Harry’s return to his country with his family is a real surprise.
The youngest son of King Charles III and Meghan “plan to leave the United States by the end of the month to settle in a private, non-royal residence, which would be outside London,” wrote the Telegraph.
Their two children are enrolled in a British school for the start of the school year in September, according to several media, including the BBC.
According to the British agency PA, the king was informed of their project on Sunday. Charles III welcomes the possibility of seeing “more of the family on a personal basis, but their status as private individuals will not change,” PA reported.
Harry and Meghan are no longer working members of the royal family.
According to the Telegraph, Harry’s older brother William and his wife Kate were also informed of the return of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. But the heir to the throne, with whom Harry has deeply fallen out, did not react on Wednesday evening.
The return of Harry and his family represents “an extraordinary development”, commented royal family expert Richard Fitzwilliams on GB News television.
“When there is a deep divide within a family, we must rejoice at any news moving in the direction of reconciliation,” he added, while remaining cautious. “We have to wait and see how the situation will evolve.”
– Share a tea –
Harry had expressed on several occasions how much he missed the United Kingdom. And there had been signs of rapprochement with his family, especially his father, in recent times.
In May 2025, he told the BBC of his desire for “reconciliation” with his family, saying he was “really sad not to be able to show (his) homeland to (his) children”.
And on July 10, Charles III and his wife Camilla received, in London, Harry, Meghan and their two children, Archie and Lilibet, aged 7 and 5 – a first in four years.
The children had last seen their grandfather in person during Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee celebrations in 2022.
Prince Harry, 41, has returned to the United Kingdom several times.
He notably met King Charles III in February 2024, just after the announcement of the sovereign’s cancer, then in September 2025, when he was invited to share tea with his father at his London residence at Clarence House.
– Unpopular –
Harry and Meghan, who married in 2018, made headlines around the world in January 2020 when they left the United Kingdom with a bang.
Already in 2019, Harry spoke in a documentary about tensions with his brother William. Meghan, a former American actress, had spoken of her difficulties facing the pressures she had suffered since joining the royal family.
In January 2020, it was on Instagram that they announced that they wanted to give up most of their royal obligations.
Two months later, they made their last appearance with the royal family.
They settled briefly in Canada, before purchasing a house in Montecito, California.
They are very unpopular in the UK.
Making the crisis worse, Harry settled his scores in 2023 in his memoir “The Substitute”, being particularly critical of his brother William and Kate.
By leaving the royal family, Harry had lost his systematic police protection paid for by the British taxpayer.
This question remains crucial. It was a major point of tension between him and the royal family. He tried in court to regain police protection, but was rejected.
Harry also sued several newspapers, which he accused of illegal news gathering.
As recently as January, during a trial against the owner of the Daily Mail, he claimed, on the verge of tears, that the British tabloids had made his wife’s life “absolutely hellish”.
