Prince Harry Blows Up Speculation He Misses Royal Life With Just One Salty Word

Since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's abrupt exit from the U.K., there have been non-stop predictions that the Duke of Sussex would eventually come to regret trading royal life and all the privileges that come with it for a new one in California. These claims ramped up in February 2024 when King Charles III announced his cancer diagnosis, and reports began circulating that Harry was willing to return as a working royal to support his father amid his ongoing treatment. However, critics saw this as another piece of evidence that the prince was allegedly discontented with his life with Meghan and their children. "Harry does miss being a working royal — being a royal is the only thing he is trained to do and he is getting very bored in California," royal author Tom Quinn alleged to the Mirror.

However, Prince Harry may have put this longtime speculation to rest once and for all with a single shady utterance during an interview at The New York Times' 2024 DealBook Summit. While there have been many signs that Harry has no plans to return to the royal family (like airing their dirty laundry in his bombshell memoir), there was perhaps no clearer indication that he'd burned his bridge back to the fold when the prince publicly mocked the Sussexes' many critics and called them "trolls" outright. This move is antithetical to The Firm's longtime PR strategy of "never complain, never explain," and thus seemingly signals that the Duke of Sussex is enjoying the freedom of no longer being bound by such strict rules and protocols rather than secretly orchestrating a royal comeback.

Prince Harry also called out the British tabloids and the haters alike for their never-ending speculations about his marriage to Meghan Markle while chatting with Dealbook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin in December 2024. "It's hard to keep up with, but that's why you just sort of ignore it. The people I feel most sorry about are the trolls. Their hopes are just built and built, and it's like, 'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,' and then it doesn't happen. So I feel sorry for them. Genuinely, I do," the sassy royal deadpanned. However, long before the sit-down, Harry had already made it clear that he had put his life as a working royal completely behind him. Asked by Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes," in 2023, if he thought he'd ever "return as a full-time member of the royal family," Harry responded simply, "No. I can't see that happening," (via CBS News). 

His official paperwork backed this up too, with the Duke of Sussex listing the U.S. as his primary residence. Despite royal watchers' ongoing doubts, Meghan and Harry have continued to thrive since they began living stateside. The Sussexes scored multimillion-dollar production and book deals, gone on international tours, and attended numerous glitzy events all while notably maintaining absolute control over their lives, their image, and their PR. Moreover, Harry believes that if his late mother Princess Diana were still alive, she would have been fully supportive of the direction he's taken. As the royal defector explained to Sorkin at the 2024 Dealbook Summit, "I enjoy living [in the U.S.] and bringing my kids up here, it's a part of my life that I never thought I was going to live and it feels as though it's the life that my mom wanted for me."