TL;DR:
- In February 2023, a spokesperson confirmed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle received an email from King Charles III’s office about the coronation.
- They also offered no “immediate decision” on whether or not Prince Harry and Meghan Markle would attend the May 2023 ceremony.
- According to a PR expert, it makes Prince Harry and Meghan Markle appear “really childish.”
- The expert also says “royalty” is the couple’s “only currency.”
Will they or won’t they? It’s the question royal watchers and experts have asked since King Charles III ascended the throne. Will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle go to the king’s coronation? The Duke and Duchess of Sussex haven’t said one way or the other. According to an expert, that in itself doesn’t look reflect well on the couple.
Prince Harry got an email about the coronation from King Charles’ office, not sharing RSVP ‘at this time’
A spokesperson for Harry issued a statement regarding the coronation with just a few sentences.
“I can confirm The Duke has recently received email correspondence from His Majesty’s office regarding the coronation,” the spokesperson said (via CNN).
As for any details on Harry and Meghan attending the May 2023 ceremony at Westminster Abbey, the spokesperson didn’t reveal how they’d be RSVP’ing. “An immediate decision on whether The Duke and Duchess will attend will not be disclosed by us at this time,” they said.
So the question remains. Will Harry and Meghan go to King Charles’ coronation or won’t they?
Expert says Harry and Meghan not sharing coronation RSVP has made for ‘petulant’-looking ‘optics’
The “optics” surrounding Harry, Meghan, and their coronation attendance don’t look good, according to Edward Coram James, chief executive of the U.K.-based PR agency, Go Up.
“The fact that they’ve been invited, but they’re not commenting on whether they’re going to go, reputationally, just makes them look really childish,” he said (via Newsweek). “It’s just another thing that they’ve done wrong.”
“They could have just been really quiet about it and just turned up,” Coram James continued. “Instead, it’s something that actually is a bit of an olive branch that’s been extended to them. And I don’t know what their genuine reaction is but the optics are just a little bit petulant and that’s how it comes across.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have no ‘option but to go’ to the coronation, expert says
According to the expert, it’s not really a question of should Harry and Meghan go to the coronation or shouldn’t they.
“I don’t see that they have an option but to go,” he said. “If they just stop doing royal things then they stop being royal, and if they stop being royal then there goes their career and there goes their income stream and everything that comes along with it.”
“Their only currency is the fact that they’re royalty,” Coram James continued. “They’ve got nothing else. It may well be that in the coming few years they’ll build a really strong reputation as solid filmmakers but that hasn’t yet happened.”
He added that, currently, Harry and Meghan are “not yet considered serious filmmakers.” Therefore, “the only thing that is keeping them relevant and prevalent is being royal. Take that away from them and they disappear very quickly into anonymity.”
King Charles’ coronation is on May 6, 2023, in London, England.
