JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
They called it Megxit (ph) or sometimes Megxile (ph). We're talking about Harry and Meghan's self-imposed exile in California. Now, six years later, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are moving back to the United Kingdom. They've already enrolled their kids in a school there this fall. NPR's Lauren Frayer reports on what this homecoming could have in store for the prince and his American wife.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: This is how some British media talk about Prince Harry's wife.
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UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: Duchess of Sussex - what's her name? - Meghan Markle because she...
FRAYER: Talk radio host Andrew Pierce told GB News, a local TV network, that when he looks at Meghan...
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ANDREW PIERCE: I don't see...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: No.
PIERCE: ...A Black woman.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: No, you don't.
PIERCE: I don't see a woman of color. I see an intensely irritating, American third-rate actress who's doing everything she can to wreck the royal family.
FRAYER: The British press can be ruthless. So can the royals, says Catherine Mayer, author of a book called "Divide And Rule" about how royal women are treated.
CATHERINE MAYER: It's a weird institution that can't recruit. It can only expand through marriage or through childbirth. And that licenses a kind of attention on women and an attempt to control all aspects of their lives.
FRAYER: Many Brits see Meghan's lifestyle brand as inappropriate, even crass. She gets accused of manipulating her husband, turning him against his brother, Prince William. She gets blamed for the couple's joint decisions to leave the U.K. and seek profit from their royal name.
MAYER: With Meghan, there always has been an element of treating her as an alien, partly because she's Californian. But there is definitely also racism and misogyny.
FRAYER: In California, there was that famous 2021 sit-down with Oprah in which Meghan alleged that the royals had expressed...
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MEGHAN MARKLE: Concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born.
FRAYER: ...Referring to her firstborn, Prince Archie, who is now 7. Meghan told Oprah she felt suffocated by the royals, alienated and othered by them and felt for a time...
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MARKLE: I just didn't want to be alive anymore.
FRAYER: Rather than expressing concern, many viewers here criticized her in that interview for being too emotive, having the opposite of a stiff upper lip. Harry also had issues with the U.K. He sued the tabloids for allegedly hacking his phone. His requests for taxpayer-funded bodyguards while in the U.K. were all turned down. All of this led the prince to conclude in a BBC interview last year...
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PRINCE HARRY: I can't see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point.
FRAYER: But now he and Meghan have done an about-face. It's unclear what changed. So many questions persist.
JACK ROYSTON: So we still don't know what part of the country they're going to be living in, what they might be doing to earn money, what school the kids are going to.
FRAYER: Newsweek's royal editor Jack Royston says the biggest question may be what William, whom Harry in his memoir called his beloved brother but also his arch nemesis, thinks of Harry's return. King Charles, who's 77 and undergoing cancer treatment, has always been more open to reconciliation, Royston says.
ROYSTON: But between William and Harry, it's very different. They have no relationship. They don't talk. William is still very angry and particularly with Meghan. And so if William believes that Charles is mishandling this and is doing too much to kind of welcome Harry home and elevate his platform, then that could cause real complications.
FRAYER: In the audiobook of his memoir, Harry recalls how in 2021, the year after he left, he returned to Windsor for his grandfather's funeral and agreed to meet his father and brother in Frogmore Gardens, near the graves of Edward VIII and his wife, Wallis Simpson, another American who caused a rift in the royal family.
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HARRY: (Reading) I looked around, saw no one. I checked my phone, no texts, no voicemails. They must be running late, I thought, leaning against the stone wall. I put away my phone and told myself, stay calm.
FRAYER: Then he describes Charles and William striding towards him. His stomach drops. Hang on, he recalls thinking. Are we meeting for a walk or a duel? Lauren Frayer, NPR News, London. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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