Could Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and their son Archie Harrison end up moving to Africa to get away from the scrutiny of royal life in England?
It’s not impossible. But also not likely to happen anytime soon, according to the Duke of Sussex.
Back in April, the Sunday Times reported that Harry’s advisers were working to establish a role for him and his wife abroad, “most likely in Africa.” At the time, Buckingham Palace said no decisions had been made. In the ITV documentary Harry and Meghan: An African Journey, which follows the family on their tour of the southern part of the continent, the duke talks about the possibility of moving to the region, where he and his wife have done much charity work and which holds a special place in their hearts.
‘I don’t know where we could live in Africa at the moment,” Harry says on the program, which airs on Sunday evening in the U.K. and on Wednesday in the U.S. “We’ve just come from Cape Town, that would be an amazing place for us to be able to base ourselves, of course it would. But with all the problems that are going on there I just don’t see how we would be able to make as much difference as we want to without the issues and the judgment of how we would be with those surroundings.”
“I think it’s a very hard place to live when you know what’s going on but then you’re sort of slightly disconnected from it,” he continued. ”So, the rest of our lives, our life’s work will be predominately focused on Africa, on conservation. There are 19 Commonwealth countries across this continent so there’s a lot of things to be done, but there’s also huge potential.”
Harry and Meghan brought Archie with them to southern Africa several weeks ago on what marked the now-5-month-old baby’s first royal tour. They plan to travel with him to the duchess’ U.S. homeland for the first time next month as part of a six-week break for the holidays, which they will also spend back home in the U.K., the Sunday Times reported this weekend.
Their sabbatical will come weeks after Harry launched an unprecedented attack on the British tabloids over what he called their “ruthless” campaign against Meghan, who came under much media criticism over perceived negative behavior while she was pregnant and after she gave birth. In the documentary, she is shown getting emotional as she acknowledges that she has been struggling.
In another Sunday Times article published this weekend, the journalist who interviewed her and Harry for the ITV documentary, Tom Bradby, wrote about his impression of the Duchess of Sussex’s demeanor as she discussed the issue more.
“I couldn’t quite shake a sense of sadness, too, at the powerful impression that this young family, happy in themselves, is struggling to adapt to life in the spotlight. Can you cope with this, I asked Meghan at the end? I don’t know, her demeanor seemed to suggest, I just don’t know. We are, she said, taking it one day at a time,” he wrote.
He also wrote, “As we lifted off for home, I found myself left with a single question: if they can’t cope with this; if it is, as she says, existing not living; what then?”
The passage was later changed online to omit the last few words.
“Before we all got on the plane home, I had a chance to explore what had been going on with Meghan herself,” he wrote. “Again, it will be for everyone to judge — you may even have seen the clip we released on Friday — but both of them in this trip came across as more vulnerable and bruised than the spoilt, petulant, arrogant and entitled caricatures that are sometimes tied to the public whipping post.”
Meghan and Harry: An African Journey will air on ITV in the U.K. on Sunday at 9 p.m. local time and on ABC in the U.S. on Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET.