‘He wants nothing to do with her!’ The one royal Prince Harry does NOT want to reunite with – and it’s not who you think!
It’s now just days until the Sussexes’ return to the UK next week and there is no doubt that after six years of animosity, the Royal Family will be on tenterhooks over how this visit will pan out.
Harry is also likely to be all too aware that his relationship with his family hangs in the balance, and one wrong step could inevitably spell the end of any hopes that he and Meghan Markle will ever be welcome back into the royal fold.
So it comes as little wonder that we’re told how Harry and Meghan may be carefully curating a list of the people they would like to see – and there’s one royal who we’re told has not made the cut by a long stretch.
Despite previously showing her support for Meghan, describing her as ‘modern and fabulous’, a source tells us how the Sussexes know that any association with Sarah Ferguson would be a huge ‘risk’ they are not willing to take at such a delicate juncture.
The insider says, ‘Sarah was one of the few people within the family who publicly supported them time and again, so it’s understandable that she’d want Meghan and Harry to return the favor. But it’s just never going to happen, not with how tarnished Sarah’s reputation has become.
‘At one point she and Meghan were quite close but they haven’t spoken in years and any association now is only going to give critics another stick to beat them with. Fact is, Sarah can’t do anything to help Meghan now so why would she show her any support when doing so would only hurt her brand? She simply can’t risk it.’
Likewise, the source says Harry finds allegations that have emerged surrounding Sarah’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein ‘reprehensible’. He has never spoken about her publicly but did refer to his uncle Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in his 2023 memoir, Spare.
Vis-à-vis his own on-going bid for security, Harry wrote, ‘Despite being involved in an embarrassing scandal, accused of having sexually abused a young woman, nobody had suggested removing his security. People may have a lot of grievances towards us, but sexual offences weren’t one of them.’
Now the source adds, ‘Harry can’t stomach the things Sarah has gotten caught up in, and more just keeps coming out.
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‘He finds it absolutely reprehensible that she was visiting Epstein when he was serving jail time for his paedophilia and he wants nothing to do with her. He and Meghan have been as gentle as possible about it, but they’ve let Beatrice and Eugenie know that they don’t want to hear from their mother again.’
Meanwhile, we’re told that after having herself been all but banished from the royal fold and having been stripped of her Duchess title and evicted from Royal Lodge alongside her Andrew, Sarah had hoped that she and Harry could build an ‘alliance’ together.
‘Sarah has been sending messages through Eugenie and Beatrice for quite some time, trying to chip away at Harry's resistance because she’d dearly love to see him and Meghan again,’ the insider says.
‘She swears this isn’t about getting their sympathy, she's insisting that it's for their benefit. They’ve been treated terribly by the royal family and so has she, and in her view they’d do well to form an alliance, or at the very least establish a friendship since they're in the same boat.’
However, Harry, 41, and Sarah, 66, have rarely appeared to share a particularly close bond, despite her remaining a familiar face within the Royal Family for years before she was sensationally ousted from the fold last September.
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While there has never been any public feud between the pair, royal watchers have speculated over whether Harry still has doubts over how trustworthy the now disgraced former Duchess is following her explosive 1996 memoir, My Story.
In the book, she offered intimate insights into her friendship with Princess Diana and exposed aspects of the late Princess's private life, including the time she alleged she had caught a verruca after borrowing a pair of Diana’s shoes.
Royal author Andrew Lownie later reflected, ‘The reality was that Diana was very concerned that Sarah Ferguson might well be selling stories about her, and that relationship was never repaired, though Sarah Ferguson pretended it had.
‘Diana would come to Sarah Ferguson every Sunday, and they would moan about the royal family. They both felt very restricted within the confines of the royal family. But at the same time, there were some concerns Diana had that Fergie perhaps was too boisterous, and she was kind of undermining Diana's own reputation, and she began to distance herself.’
Now, we’re told that Harry also shares his mother’s alleged sense of distrust, especially added to the fact that he has always been incredibly respectful and protective of her memory.The source says, ‘Harry has never trusted Sarah, not after the way she betrayed his mother by writing about her in her [1996] memoir. That was the end of her friendship with Diana and it’s not something Harry has ever forgotten.
‘Even when nearly everyone in the family was icing them out except for Sarah, he still kept her at arm's length and quietly encouraged Meghan to do the same. It was a tough spot for Meghan to be in because she did become very fond of Sarah but Harry always saw her overtures as self-serving.
‘He felt it was safer to keep a little distance and, looking at everything that's come out since, clearly that instinct was right. He and Meghan are both watching the latest revelations unfold with absolute disbelief.’
Sarah was forced to begin her onslaught of public grovelling last September after being caught red handed when a shocking email between her and the now-deceased paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was made public.
In the exchange, sent in April 2011, a month after she had denounced their friendship in a public statement; in which she said she 'abhor[s] paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children', Sarah refers to sex trafficker Epstein as a ‘steadfast, generous and supreme friend’. It later emerged that Epstein had given her £15,000 the previous year to help pay off her debts.
The fallout was monumental, with one royal commentator summarising, ‘Her lucrative children’s book career is in tatters. Her career as a romantic novelist is also dead and buried. No respectable charity will touch her with a barge pole - the door to redemption through good works has been slammed in her face.’
But the scandal only deepened earlier this year when further emails were released. In one interaction she allegedly describes Epstein as ‘being the brother I have always wished for’ while in another she writes, ‘You are a legend. I really don't have the words to describe, my love, gratitude for your generosity and kindness…I am at your service. Just marry me.’
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Now the source says that given the context of Sarah’s at best strongly ill-advised friendship with Epstein, the Sussexes are adamant that they need to stay well away from Sarah’s toxic ‘orbit’ if they want to save themselves from any more reputational harm themselves.
‘As far as they're [Harry and Meghan are] concerned, there are some associations that are impossible to explain away and this is one of them,’ we’re told.
‘They don't see any upside whatsoever in getting dragged into Sarah's orbit now, particularly when they're already fighting constant criticism and trying to protect Meghan's reputation and business interests.’
However, both Meghan and Harry are believed to have maintained a close relationship with Sarah’s daughters, Harry’s cousins Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.
In fact, when Harry met Meghan in 2016, it was Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank who were one of the first to double date with the pair. And when the couple left the royal fold in 2020, Eugenie again showed her support by flying out to visit Harry and Meghan in Montecito.
Now, despite the sisters’ very public show of closeness with Harry’s ‘nemesis’ Prince William at Peter Phillips wedding to Harriet Sterling last month, the source says the Sussexes still feel a great deal of sympathy for how Eugenie and Beatrice have been caught up in the furore surrounding their parents.
Even so, the insider adds that Harry and Meghan are still treading carefully when it comes to how much they share, lest it ends up reaching the wrong ears.
We’re told, ‘They feel terribly sorry for Eugenie and Beatrice because neither of them asked to be caught in the middle of this horror show and they have no intention of cutting them off, but they are very clear they want to keep their relationship with them completely separate from Sarah.
‘He and Meghan have also asked that anything they share with Eugenie and Beatrice be in confidence, they don’t want anything personal getting back to Sarah because who knows how she’ll use that information.
‘Fortunately, Eugenie and Beatrice have been totally understanding, they know what a liability their mother is right now and don’t blame Harry and Meghan for wanting to keep their distance.’
