Royal Author Says Harry and Meghan’s Exit Caused ‘Very Serious Damage’ to the British Monarchy Today

LONDON — Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s departure from royal life has inflicted lasting harm on the British monarchy’s ability to connect with younger generations, according to royal author Catherine Mayer, who argues the couple’s exit left a gap in the institution’s public appeal that has yet to be filled.

Mayer, whose new book “Divide & Rule” is now out, made the comments to Fox News Digital as Meghan celebrated her 45th birthday on Monday, offering a fresh assessment of how the Sussexes’ 2020 departure from senior royal duties continues to shape public perception of the monarchy more than five years later.

A rupture with lasting consequences

Speaking about the impact of Harry and Meghan’s exit, Mayer was direct in her assessment of the institutional fallout. “Has done very serious damage to the monarchy,” Mayer said, describing the broader rupture within the royal family that led the couple to relocate to the United States.

Mayer was careful to clarify that her assessment was not intended as criticism of Harry and Meghan themselves. She said the framing of the situation as something the couple did to the monarchy oversimplifies what she described as a genuinely painful episode for everyone involved, including the institution as a whole. She pointed to recent public opinion polling on the monarchy’s popularity as evidence that the institution’s standing has continued to erode in the years since the Sussexes stepped back.

A missing generational bridge

Central to Mayer’s argument is the idea that Harry and Meghan once served as a bridge between the monarchy and younger, more diverse audiences, a role she argues has gone unfilled since their departure. She suggested that Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, while central figures in the modern monarchy, tend toward a more traditionally cautious public approach compared with the broader appeal Harry and Meghan once offered.

Mayer also noted a generational gap within the family itself, observing that there is currently no adult royal positioned between Prince George, still a child, and his parents, William and Catherine, capable of capturing the imagination of younger audiences the way Harry and Meghan once did. She argued that despite being roughly the same age as William and Catherine, Harry and Meghan carried a broader public appeal that has since been lost to the institution.

A birthday marked by continued distance

Mayer’s comments arrived on the same day Meghan turned 45, a milestone marked amid what remains an unresolved rift between the Sussexes and the wider royal family. The couple had a private meeting with King Charles and Queen Camilla on July 10, marking Meghan’s first return to England since 2022, though she made no public appearances during that visit, underscoring the continued distance between the Sussexes and official royal life.

The couple stepped back from their roles as senior working royals in 2020, citing intrusive media coverage and what they described as insufficient support from the palace. As part of that departure, Harry and Meghan lost their taxpayer-funded security detail, a change Harry has long sought to reverse, citing ongoing concerns for his family’s safety while in the United Kingdom.

Where Mayer places the real blame

Despite her assessment that the Sussexes’ departure damaged the monarchy’s broader appeal, Mayer pointed elsewhere when identifying the primary driver behind the institution’s declining popularity in recent polling. She argued that the steepest losses in public support trace back to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was formally stripped of his princely title following the fallout from his widely scrutinized associations, a controversy Mayer suggested has done more sustained reputational harm to the monarchy than Harry and Meghan’s exit.

A recurring theme among royal commentators

Mayer’s comments echo broader debate among royal authors and commentators over the lasting impact of the Sussexes’ departure, a discussion that has resurfaced repeatedly since Harry and Meghan first stepped back from official duties. Earlier assessments of the couple’s high-profile interviews and media projects, including their sit-down with Oprah Winfrey and subsequent Netflix documentary series, similarly described the revelations as damaging to the institution’s carefully managed public image, even as royal watchers have generally predicted the monarchy would ultimately withstand the controversy.

The Sussexes have previously pushed back forcefully against authors and commentators they viewed as unfairly characterizing their motives or actions, at times issuing formal statements disputing specific claims made about their departure and its aftermath. Neither Harry nor Meghan’s representatives had issued a public response to Mayer’s latest comments as of Monday.

A monarchy navigating multiple challenges

Mayer’s broader assessment reflects a monarchy currently facing scrutiny on several fronts simultaneously, from the continued fallout surrounding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to ongoing questions about how the institution can maintain relevance with younger, more diverse audiences in an era of declining public deference toward traditional institutions. Her comments suggest that, in her view, no single royal currently occupies the space Harry and Meghan once filled in projecting a more modern, broadly appealing image of the monarchy to younger generations both in Britain and internationally.

With Meghan’s birthday passing largely out of the public eye and the Sussexes continuing to operate primarily from their base in California, questions about whether, or how, the family’s rift might eventually narrow remain unresolved. Mayer’s comments add to a growing body of commentary suggesting that regardless of how relations between Harry, Meghan and the wider royal family ultimately develop, the institutional impact of their 2020 departure continues to shape public conversation about the monarchy’s future years later, with no clear resolution in sight for either the family rift or the broader generational gap Mayer describes.