MAUREEN CALLAHAN: Why its suddenly time for lonely Prince Harry to leave Meghan Markle in Montecito
If ever there was a time for Prince Harry to head home, its now.
If ever there was a time for Prince Harry to head home, its now.
In yet another bombshell, insiders say that Harry only learned that his father was hospitalized, due to side effects from his cancer treatment, on the news last week.
Thats how completely and utterly dire this fracture is.
Sources have also revealed that Harry is lonelier than ever in Montecito.
Of course he is. Harry seems to have few friends, and no core support system of his own.
His wife is off promoting her Netflix series and making yet another podcast while hawking royal-adjacent merch on her website — replete with affiliate links that give her a cut of every sale.
If ever there was a time for Prince Harry to head home, its now.
Sources have also revealed that Harry is lonelier than ever in Montecito. Of course he is. Harry seems to have few friends , and no core support system of his own.
Surely this is not the life he imagined post-Megxit.
The fall from grandeur is extreme — shes busy decanting pretzels and flogging her wedding make-up while he once hosted heads of state and was Britains greatest soft-power export since Princess Diana.
Grim, indeed.
This all comes to a head as Harry was reportedly left reeling after being forced to step down from his Sentebale charity amid mysterious controversy.
Compounding this loss, the chair of Sentebale, Dr. Sophie Chandauka, told the Financial Times that Harrys brand is toxic and actively harmed the charitys reputation.
Her public message to Harry: The team is resolved that Sentebale will live on, with or without you.
Its been a merciless week for the prodigal Duke, with one source telling The Sun that while initially Harry was a spare to William, now hes increasingly looking like a spare to Meghan — and its not a good look.
Meghan Markle, as we all regrettably know, is in it to win it.
But shes trying to build a media empire, while Harry is… doing what, exactly?
Sure, he has Invictus, but thats not enough to keep a 40-year-old unemployed man occupied.
All that free time isnt healthy.
Unstructured days surely only allow him to perseverate on whats gone wrong and the mess hes made of what was once an easy, gilded, pampered life — a life that required not much effort in return for global admiration.
Now hes left to twist in the soft winds of Montecito as his wife grinds out her products and podcasts.
He misses his family terribly, another source said, but no one is speaking to him anymore.
Imagine: Harry hears, on the news, that his cancer-stricken elderly father has been hospitalized, and he cant call or text his brother, sister-in-law or stepmother to find out whats going on.
This should be setting off alarm bells for Harry. His father wont be around forever. Now is the time to fly back home, tail firmly between his legs, and beg for forgiveness.
Really, he should just prostrate himself before his father — say hell do whatever it takes.
Leave Meghan in Monetico for weeks or months at a time. She has plenty to keep her busy.
He should also insist on taking their children to visit the grandfather they barely know.
If Harry doesnt grow a spine now, he never will — and without William softening, hell surely be totally cut off when his brother becomes king.
Doing the hard work of rebuilding a bond with his father — and making it clear he expects nothing in return, not money or another patronage or more titles for his children — is perhaps the only way William might entertain a rapprochement, however surface-level.
Theres nothing much left for Harry in California. This was all clearly Meghans dream, not his.
Stripped of his purpose in life, and with many of his friends and family lost to him — for now, anyway — he has been left reliant on Meghan for what seems like everything.
He just wants to go for a beer with the guys, that source told The Sun. But his only friends are just the husbands of Meghans friends.
And how could they possibly relate? These men arent part of Harrys cohort, the aristocrats who went to Eton and breathe the same rarified air.
One wonders if hes even thought this through. Harry seems so immature, so reactive, that perhaps he genuinely believed he could say — and memorialize in print — all his worst feelings about his father, brother and sister-in-law, and all would be well in the end.
That they would apologize to him.
It seems not to have registered what a brutal year William has had, his father and wife both diagnosed with cancer, his only sibling completely estranged, the fate of becoming king now looming large.
The lowest Ive ever seen him, was how Williams former top aide Jason Knauf recently described him after the dual cancer diagnoses. It was awful, absolutely awful.
Harry should now put himself in Williams shoes and understand that hes not the only member of the royal family who suffers.
King Charles, by all accounts, would welcome his son back into the fold, despite Williams resistance.
But will Harry meet the moment?