Royal rejection: Harry and Meghan won't spend this Christmas with the Queen
London, UK - Christmas is usually a time to be celebrated with family. Yet, it apparently won't be this year for Prince Harry (37), his wife Meghan Markle (40), and the royals. The pair has allegedly turned down an invitation to celebrate the holidays with Queen Elizabeth II (95).
The royal monarch will spend the holidays without her husband Prince Philip for the first time this year after his death in April, "so one would have hoped that they would want to be with her," a palace insider told Page Six of Harry and Meghan.
The couple now resides in Montecito, California and has been said to have caused a rift after announcing their retirement from their duties as royals.
But it seems the two most likely won't be mending any fences this Christmas.
"There’s a lot that goes into the logistics and the planning of the family Christmas, so of course, staff know that Harry and Meghan are not coming," the source explained to the outlet. "If they were, they would have communicated it to their family by now."
It's believed that the pair want to avoid the tabloid press attention that would come with their traveling to the UK, especially amidst Meghan's recent ongoing legal battle over past headlines.
Meghan may be trying to improve her image after a hearing last week in which she backpedaled previous claims she had not contributed to a memoir about her.
On Thursday, Meghan appeared as a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and stuck to relatable topics, without a word about the royals or her explosive Oprah interview in which she called some palace officials racist earlier this year.
The last time Harry and Meghan spent Christmas with his family was in 2018, one year before the family's supposed fallout.
Cover photo: Collage: IMAGO/i Images