Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have made their first public appearance since the arrest of her father, Thomas Markle Sr. They walked hand-in-hand to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium.
The Duchess had originally been set to make a speech but cancelled amid reports that she was “not strong enough”.
The couple are promoting awareness of the harms posed to children by social media but after last Friday, when her 82-year-old father was arrested by the FBI and charged with possession of child abuse images, Meghan pulled out.
“She’s just not strong enough, emotionally, to be doing any public speaking right now,” a source told UK newspaper, The Telegraph.
Family Time
The couple walked through the Lost Screen Memorial, an art installation honouring children who died after being subjected to online harm, ignoring questions from the media.
A few hours later is was revealed that Meghan’s father had allegedly cut off his electronic monitoring device from his ankle and had been ordered into custody.
All this comes after a quiet few weeks for the couple, who took a brief step back from public life. It’s been reported they didn’t want to deflect attention from King Charles and Queen Camilla’s recent Caribbean tour and that they were also focusing on family time with their children Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, during the school holidays.
They also moved into a new house on a friend’s Cotswold estate amid claims they couldn’t afford to buy a property in the UK. But behind the scenes, Woman’s Day has learned Meghan remains deeply affected by the allegations levelled at her estranged father – royal commentator Victoria Arbiter reports she is “in bits and tears” thinking about the alleged child victims involved.
Easy Exit
Meanwhile, sources claim the palace is increasingly horrified by the furore and now Charles wants to offer his son an easy exit from his marriage.
“The King knows his son isn’t happy and he told Harry years ago he would help him through a divorce if he ever wanted it. After this latest revelation, Charles is desperate for a clean slate for Harry and wants him to reconsider.”
Charles even looked visibly cross as he and Camilla were caught in a downpour while celebrating Antigua and Barbuda’s 45th independence anniversary parade in Antigua as the stress of the latest scandal appeared to take its toll.
Digging Deeply
Meanwhile, it’s been reported much of this could have been avoided if better background checks had been carried out on Meghan when she first started dating Harry.
Online outlet Naughty But Nice claims palace staff didn’t look as closely into Meghan’s background as they had done with Kate Middleton because they feared upsetting Harry by digging too deeply.
A similar misstep appears to have been made by the UK’s Metropolitan Police in 2019 when they intercepted a letter containing serious allegations against Meghan’s father but never investigated further.
“Clearly the allegations involving her father have nothing to do with Meghan, but the King is fed up with all the drama this has brought to his world,” says the source.
