In 2025, for the third consecutive year, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were not invited to Trooping the Colour – the annual celebration marking King Charles’ official birthday, which took place on June 14, 2025. The high-profile royal event once again went ahead without the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who last attended in 2019.
Harry and Meghan had previously joined Trooping the Colour twice as a couple following their 2018 wedding, taking part in the royal carriage procession and appearing on the Buckingham Palace balcony in both 2018 and 2019. However, they have not returned to the event since stepping down from their royal duties in 2020.
The celebration was significantly scaled back in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the full-scale tradition resumed in 2022, Prince Harry and Meghan’s children – Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet – have never attended the event.
Prince Archie was only a few weeks old when his parents last took part in Trooping in June 2019. His sister, Princess Lilibet, was born in California in June 2021, more than a year after the couple stepped away from their official royal roles.
In June 2022, the Sussex family returned to the United Kingdom for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, celebrating her record-breaking 70-year reign. That visit was likely the first and only time the late Queen met Lilibet, who was named after her childhood nickname. It remains Harry and Meghan’s only trip to the U.K. with both children since they stepped down from their royal roles.
For Trooping the Colour in 2025, Meghan had planned to attend a Los Angeles museum gala on the same day, though the event was later canceled amid city protests. Prince Harry and Meghan’s continued absence from royal events reflected the ongoing strain within the royal family.
One major point of contention remains their lack of automatic, state-funded security while in the U.K. Harry believed this vital protection was wrongly revoked when he and Meghan stepped down from royal duties in 2020. His most recent attempt to reverse that decision was rejected by a judge on May 2, 2025.
Speaking to the BBC, Harry shared his emotional connection to his homeland:
“The things that they’re going to miss is, well, everything. I love my country. I always have done. Despite what some people in that country have done.”
“I miss the U.K., I miss parts of the U.K., of course I do.” He went on to say, “I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland,” he added.
As the disconnect between Harry and King Charles persisted, royal historian Sally Bedell Smith told PEOPLE magazine:
“The underlying issue is trust.”
Harry has acknowledged that he could not envision a scenario where he would return to the U.K. with Meghan and their two children – Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4 – under the current conditions. He told the BBC:
“I can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point.”
Since Charles became king in 2022, the couple’s royal participation has noticeably waned. Their last Trooping the Colour appearance was during Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022, where they were kept from the public eye, watching the event with other non-working royals and absent from the balcony.
Despite Harry’s claim that his father was not speaking to him, he remained hopeful:
“I would love reconciliation with my family. There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore.”
“Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has,” he elaborated, adding, “He won’t speak to me because of this security stuff, but it would be nice to reconcile.”
Do you think Harry and Meghan’s absence from the Trooping the Colour signals a lasting royal divide? What do you think it says about the future of the monarchy? Let us know, and then pass this along to other fans of the royal family!