Meghan WON’T join Prince Harry in Britain for Invictus Games anniversary service, Sussex spokesman confirms
The Duchess of Sussex will not join Prince Harry when he arrives in the UK next week.
But she will fly from the US to Nigeria to meet her husband for an official visit immediately afterwards, it emerged yesterday.
A spokesman for the couple confirmed that Meghan would not accompany her husband to a service at St Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games for injured service personnel on May 8.
But they said she would be at his side for an ‘Invictus-inspired’ visit to Africa immediately after the duke leaves the UK.
Harry last returned to Britain in February for a brief 30-minute meeting with his father after it was announced that he was being treated for cancer.
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He said in an interview afterwards that he would ‘stop in and see my family as much as I can’, but the brevity of the reunion with his father was noted by many.
Meghan has only briefly set foot in the UK three times since she and Harry acrimoniously quit royal duties for a new life in California. Sources close to the duchess have been previously reported as saying she is ‘done’ with Britain and ‘doesn’t want the drama’. So it will be seen as significant by many that while there are no plans for Meghan to accompany her husband to London for such a key event, there has been official confirmation of her intention to travel to Nigeria.
Buckingham Palace have declined to comment about Harry’s visit and whether he might meet again with his father.
The Mail understands the King’s diary is ‘quite busy’ that day – he will undertake his weekly meeting with the Prime Minister and hopes to attend the first Buckingham Palace garden party of the summer, which will be his biggest public engagement since being diagnosed with cancer.
It will be Harry’s first visit to Britain since he lost a High Court appeal about his security arrangements after his round-the-clock police protection was removed when he quit as a working royal.
No senior members of the Royal Family are expected to join Prince Harry for the Invictus Games event in the UK.
Harry will give a reading at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, on May 8 to mark the games’ tenth anniversary, but no mention has been made of the attendance of any senior royal.
It is thought Harry will stay in a hotel during his stay in the UK – as he done on his previous recent visits – before days later jetting off to Nigeria to join Meghan.
The couple have been invited to Nigeria by the country’s chief of defence staff – who met Harry in Germany last September at the Invictus Games Dusseldorf – to take part in ‘cultural activities’ for an unofficial royal visit.
They will meet service members and their families and participate in ‘traditional cultural activities’, according to Nigerian media.
The Sussexes quit the UK and moved to America when they stepped down as working royals in January 2020.
Harry and Meghan’s acceptance of the invitation – their first visit to Nigeria as a couple – is said to have left the country’s defence headquarters feeling ‘honoured’ and ‘delighted’, according to local newspaper reports.
Meghan revealed in 2022 she found out she is 43 per cent Nigerian after doing a genealogy test ‘a couple years ago’.
Speaking on her podcast Archetypes to Nigerian-American comedian Ziwe Fumudoh she said: ‘I’m going to start to dig deeper into all this because anybody that I’ve told, especially Nigerian women, are like ”What!”’
The visit will come days after Harry flies to Britain for the Invictus Games 10th anniversary.
Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said with Nigeria hoping to host a future Invictus Games and Meghan’s ancestry links to the country it makes sense for the couple to make the trip.
But he doesn’t believe it’s a move by the Sussexes to return to public duty with Harry having ‘no desire’ to do so.
‘It’s [the visit to Nigeria] a very good face saver with Meghan not coming to Britain and shows a bit of PR nous,’ he said.
