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Buckingham Palace may have been scheming on behalf of King Charles to paint Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in bad light after planting stories in the press.
The Sunday Times had reported that Charles’ younger son rejected the invitation to his father’s upcoming 75th birthday. However, a rep for the Duke of Sussex refuted the claims stating that there was “no contact regarding an invitation to His Majesty’s upcoming birthday.”
Now, a friend close to the Sussexes told MailOnline that the Palace may have leaked the “snubbing” story in a bid to divert the attention of the public from the Charles’ controversial state visit to Kenya.
“The story is being positioned in a way to make it look like the Duke is snubbing his father, which he is not,” the pal said. “’Considering the trip [to Kenya] didn’t go well, this might be a welcome distraction.”
King Charles faced criticism for their refusal to apologise for Britain’s colonial past. Moreover, the Charles and Camilla were also slammed for using “unnecessary” red carpets to “avoid” stepping on African soil.
Charles and his younger son have been embroiled in a long ongoing rift which deepened over the years, especially after the release of Harry’s memoir, Spare, this year.
Previously, a royal insider shared that if the rift was ever healed, it would only be for public optics.
“Ultimately Charles has not just a personal but also a strategic need to resolve the issue,” a former palace staffer told the Daily Beast. “It’s not sustainable for the king, who is the national symbol of unity, to be on such bad terms with his son.”
