Meghan Markle and Prince Harry invited to Queen’s 95th birthday parade in first Royal Family reunion since Megxit
The Queen has invited Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to her 95th birthday celebrations in the first royal reunion since Megxit.
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Queen Elizabeth, 94, is said to be determined to get “back to business” after she was forced to cancel a string of royal events last year due to the pandemic.
As part of that wish to return to royal routine, Her Majesty has reportedly invited her grandson Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to join her for Trooping the Colour in London on June 12 to mark her official birthday.
According to The Sun, it will be the first time they have publicly reunited since Harry and Meghan controversially defected from the royal family last January.
Royal aides revealed that the event is both an official and a “family occasion”, therefore the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are expected to join the Queen for the event.
Trooping the Colour, a military parade featuring more than 1700 troops and 400 musicians, is usually held in public in front of huge crowds.
Last year, Markle joined other royal, including Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
Attending the event would also mean Harry would be in the UK for his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh’s, 100th birthday.
The military parade falls two days after the milestone with the royals hoping to give praise this year to the army, who are helping roll out the COVID-19 vaccine.
It comes amid speculation about when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will return to the UK from their home in LA, where they have spent the last year.
They had been due to meet the Queen in March for their 12-month review of Megxit but this was cancelled due to the pandemic.
HARRY AND MEGHAN QUIT SOCIAL MEDIA
Prince Harry and Meghan have ditched online trolls, with the couple refusing to return to social media platforms Instagram and Twitter because of heartless keyboard warriors.
The royal couple broke records when they amassed one million Instagram followers in just six hours on Instagram, but they have no plans to rejoin social media after “Megxit”.
The couple is said to be planning for longevity rather than “likes”, with Prince Harry blasting the negative effects of social media on mental health.
It came as Meghan has revealed she was the “most trolled person in the world” when she was pregnant with their son, Archie Harrison.
Prince Harry, 36, and Meghan, 39, have “no plans” to use social media for Archewell either, and were “very unlikely” to go back online with their own personal accounts, according to a source who spoke with The Sunday Times in London.
The move came as Twitter and Facebook banned US President Donald Trump after his speech and incideniary tweets were blamed for inciting riots in Washington last week, which left five people died.
Reports have claimed that Meghan and Harry, who have signed a $A130 million deal with Netflix for documentaries, and a $A54 million deal with Spotify for a series of podcasts, will not use social media to promote their businesses.
The move to keep themselves and their charity, Archewell, off social media may drive fans to their Netflix and Spotify projects for an insight into their lives.
Prince Harry, who has been known to read the negative comments about him on social media, was scathing of their negative effects on debate and human interaction.
“Social media’s own algorithms and recommendation tools can drive people down paths toward radicalism and extremism that they might not have taken otherwise,” he said in an opinion piece for American magazine Smart Company.
The article, in August last year, came at the time when people were boycotting Facebook in the #StopHateForProfit campaign organised by civil rights activists angry at the way the company tolerated racism on its platform.
Prince Harry also criticised the platforms for spreading anti-vaccination propaganda.
“There are billions of people right now — in the midst of a global pandemic that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives — who rely on algorithmically driven information feeds to make judgments about fact vs. fiction, about truth vs. lies,” he wrote.
“One could argue that access to accurate information is more important now than any other time in modern history.
“And yet, the very places that allow disinformation to spread seem to throw their arms up when asked to take responsibility and find solutions.”
However, the move will be in contrast with Prince William and Kate, who have 12.3 million Instagram followers, and 2 million on Twitter.
The Queen has 4 million Twitter followers and 8.6 million on Instagram.
The switch to social media was masterminded by Australian adviser Samantha Cohen, who worked with the Royal Family for 20 years.
The Brisbane raised adviser, who is now working for an environment charity, ensured the royals were on social media ahead of Prince William and Kate’s 2011 wedding.
However, Meghan’s experience online since she became a royal was far less welcoming that the reception Kate received.
“I’m told that in 2019 I was the most trolled person in the entire world, male or female. Now, eight months of that I wasn’t even visible, I was on maternity leave or with a baby,” Meghan told the Teenage Therapy podcast, running by three Californian students, in October 2020.
“But what was able to just be manufactured and churned out, it’s almost unsurvivable, that’s so big, you can’t think of what that feels like, because I don’t care if you’re 15 or 25, if people are saying things about you that aren’t true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging.”
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The couple have set up their own website for their charity Archewell, launched with a letter for 2021 where they mentioned the late Princess Diana, but snubbed Prince Charles.
They stepped down from royal duties in a shock statement on January 8 last year, with a review of the arrangement due by March 31.
However, the Queen was unlikely to change her position that the couple cannot be half-in and half-out of the Royal Family.
It was reported that she was behind the decision to stop a wreath being laid on behalf of Prince Harry at Remembrance Sunday services in November.
Prince Harry, a veteran of two tours of Afghanistan, was said to be heartbroken at having his military titles removed.
stephen.drill@news.co.uk
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