London:

Prince Harry was once one of the British royal family’s most popular members, but as he celebrates his 40th birthday this weekend he is increasingly distanced from the UK public and his own family.

The younger son of King Charles III, now living in California with his American television actress wife Meghan and their two young children, reaches the landmark on Sunday.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Archie, aged five, and three-year-old Princess Lilibet live in the celebrity enclave of Montecito, near Santa Barbara, on the US West Coast.

But Harry is not only separated by geography.

“He is completely isolated. I don’t see him coming back even with a minor role… there’s no sign of an official role for him,” Pauline Maclaran, from Royal Holloway University of London, told AFP.

“They (the public) don’t trust him,” added royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.

Fraught ties with royals 

Harry’s ties with the royal family have been increasingly fraught since the couple quit royal life and moved to North America in early 2020.

First came an explosive television interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which the couple claimed that senior royals speculated about the colour of their unborn son’s skin.

Meghan is of mixed heritage.

Suggestions of racism prompted Harry’s brother William, heir to the throne, to declare when asked that the royals were “very much not a racist family”.

The brothers’ grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, also politely questioned Harry and Meghan’s version of events.

“Recollections may vary,” she said in a statement, promising to look into the matter.

A potentially decisive rupture came early last year with the publication of Harry’s uncompromising and unfiltered autobiography “Spare”.

The book, which is set to be released in paperback in October, was seen as an all-out attack against the centuries-old institution of the royal family, which still plays a central role in British life.

It includes lengthy passages on Harry’s strained relationship with his “beloved brother” William, 42, whom he also describes as his “arch-nemesis”, and their father.

Experts told AFP they did not see any reconciliation on the horizon.

“His differences from other members of the royal family probably would have been settled by now if any agreement had ever been possible,” said Mark Garnett, from the University of Lancaster in northwest England.

“The idea of a divided royal family only increases unwelcome media attention.”

Harry told American TV network ABC in February that he was “sure” his father’s cancer diagnosis could reunite the family, days after a brief visit to the king.

However, on another visit by the prince to London in May, father and son were at separate events nearby but did not meet.

Harry, who has railed against media intrusion, even reportedly declined an invitation to stay at Buckingham Palace during his visit and instead stayed at a London hotel.

“He is naive about the damage he has caused”, said Maclaran.

‘Locked horns’ 

Relations between William and Harry, whose once-close bond was forged with the death of their mother Princess Diana in 1997, remain publicly frosty.

They were seen together at the late queen’s funeral in September 2022 but have pointedly kept their distance at subsequent events, including at their father’s coronation in May last year.

Royal author Robert Jobson likened the pair, who are reportedly not on speaking terms, to stags “who have locked horns”. 

“I can’t really see a reconciliation in the near future,” he told reporters in London this week.

While Harry and Meghan have more supporters in the United States, the British public has also apparently taken sides in the family feud.

Harry and Meghan languish at the bottom of royal popularity surveys, alongside his disgraced uncle Prince Andrew, whose links to the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have made him persona non grata.

In contrast, William and his wife Catherine, who is recovering from cancer, are hugely popular.

Former British Army captain Harry, meanwhile, is keeping busy with several projects, chief among them the preparation and promotion of the Invictus Games he founded for military veterans with disabilities.

He and Meghan also recently completed a mini-tour in Colombia and Nigeria promoting mental health, equality and inclusion.

If royal tours are a “vehicle for (British) diplomacy”, the Sussexes’ visits are a way of refining their “branding”, said Maclaran, who has written about the royals and consumer culture.

The tours are a way to “stay relevant”, she added. It is only “the (royal) titles that make them different from other celebrities”, she added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Prince Harry is set to receive a huge payout on his 40th birthday later this year, according to a report. The Duke of Sussex will turn 40 on September 15. In striking contrast to his elder brother Prince William, who received a ceremonial bell concert at Westminster Abbey on his 40th birthday, Prince Harry will inherit millions on his milestone birthday, thanks to arrangements made by his late great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. 

According to the Times, the late Queen Mother established a $90 million trust fund for her family, which listed that the Duke of Sussex would receive his share when he turned 40. Prince Harry will reportedly rake in around $8.5 million from his share, which is more than Prince William is slated to get.

However, Prince Harry would still have to pay taxes on his inheritance, while his elder brother would benefit from the tax-exempt Duchy of Cornwall – a private estate that funds his public, charitable and private activities. 

“William will benefit from the vast wealth of the Duchy of Cornwall, a private estate that funds the public, charitable, and private activities of the king’s heir,” a source said, per New York Post. “As a result, Harry is likely to receive slightly more than half of the 14 million pounds allocated for the brothers,” they added. 

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With an estimated current net worth of about $60 million, Prince Harry’s upcoming inheritance would be a welcome addition, the outlet noted. 

Following their exit as senior working royals, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle settled in Montecito, California. Their net worth was largely boosted because of the several high-profile projects they’ve taken on since quitting royal life in 2020. These projects include a Netflix original, Prince Harry’s tell-all memoir Spare, and Meghan Markle’s 12-episode podcast, Archetypes. 

According to the Post, Prince Harry is even considering publishing a follow-up book. The duo are also in for a big payday with the forthcoming launch of Meghan Markle’s new lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard. 

Donald Trump has hit out at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, accusing the couple of “breaking Queen Elizabeth’s heart”. The former president of the United States spoke to Nigel Farage in an exclusive interview and expressed his disapproval of how the Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down as members of the royal family in 2020, Independent reported. 

Speaking about the Queen, he said, “I think there was great disrespect to a person I got to know very well and like; the Queen. She was unbelievable you know.”

He continued: “I thought she was treated very disrespectfully by them. Although she wouldn’t show it because she was strong and smart, I imagine they broke her heart. The things that they were saying were so bad and so horrible and she was in her 90s and hearing this stuff. I think they broke her heart. I think they hurt her bad.”

The former President further insisted that Harry and Meghan ”were very disrespectful to the royal family” when they decided to step down from their duties. 

Meanwhile, he praised the late Queen, who died in September 2022, stating she “never made a mistake” during her reign. He told Mr Farage: “I’m a little prejudiced because I thought the Queen was incredible. I mean, think of it all those years, 75 years. She’s rarely made a mistake.”

The Duke of Sussex moved to the US with his wife Meghan Markle in January 2020. It was reported they “ignored” the Queen’s request to delay announcing their decision to quit public life.

During the interview, Trump also hinted that if he is elected as the US president, Prince Harry may face deportation over drug use he admitted to in his 2023 memoir. Notably, The Duke of Sussex’s immigration status has become the subject of a legal battle after Harry admitted to taking illegal drugs in his memoir, ‘Spare’  which was released last year.

”We’ll have to see if they know something about the drugs, and if he lied they’ll have to take appropriate action,” Trump said.

In ‘Spare’, Harry wrote that when he was younger, he had taken cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms, noting that the cocaine ”didn’t do anything for me,” but ”Marijuana is different, that did help me.”