When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle return to Britain this month, they will return to a country that has spent six years talking about them from afar. Their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, will attend school in Britain in September, and the couple are expected to live privately outside of London for an extended period, according to reports. They will still be non-working royals. Many questions have already been asked about the couple’s return, but after being absent for years following a tumultuous relationship with the British press that appeared to have been a factor in their move to California, could the tabloid fascination with the couple disappear this time? Speculation about the royals’ life plans and movements is nothing new in Britain, but in the mythology that can sometimes be fostered around them, Harry and Meghan were often seen as “the bad guys, the bad cops, it’s all very black and white,” said Steven Barnett, a communications professor at the University of Westminster. “It’s very binary… There’s a tendency for certain elements of the British press to go on very personal witch hunts.” Initial coverage included the Daily Mail’s “(Almost) Straight From Compton” headline about Meghan’s mother and The Sun’s “Harry’s Girl on Pornhub,” which involved the tabloid discovering scenes from Markle’s time on the US TV series Suits on a pornographic website, then apologizing for it months later. A Guardian analysis of 843 articles in 14 UK newspapers between May 2018 and January 2020 found that 43 per cent of coverage about Meghan was negative, compared to just eight per cent of 144 articles about Kate Middleton. Royal commentator Afua Hagan said interest would increase in Britain as they returned. He told Reuters that while the pair essentially walked back to the “lion’s den,” this time they were better prepared: “They won’t bring a knife to a gunfight. They know what they have to do.” they will do, what they will face and prepare better.” It’s not just the couple that has changed, Barnett said; “other soap operas” may be occupying the minds of the British public. WATCH | What do people in the UK think?: Londoners react to Prince Harry and Meghan’s return to the UK. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will reportedly return to Britain this month, six years after they quit royal duties and moved away. to the U.S. While details about the decision behind their move are unknown, the British public has mixed feelings about the move. When Meghan and Harry first lived in the U.K., Barnett said, the country was in a different place. “We didn’t have, you know, two wars; the possibility of this country being drawn into a war with Russia; the ravages of climate change. Not to mention the cost of living problems and people struggling to get by.” Still, the court loss that Prince Harry and several others recently suffered in privacy lawsuits they had filed against the Daily Mail could lead to more “nasty and vitriolic” coverage, Barnett said. The British media scrutinized after the professor’s death. The couple’s return comes at a time of The death this month of Jason Arday, a 41-year-old Cambridge professor who had resigned following allegations about his academic record, has sparked intense debate about the limits of legitimate scrutiny and whether the British press crossed them in its treatment of a black public figure. Some have drawn a connection between the nearly 250 articles that were published about Arday in two weeks, according to The Independent, and the negative coverage that Markle received “The load of things that Meghan… received for years and years and years is similar to what Professor Jason Arday had. It was built up over years and years and years and it’s still going on,” Nina Myskow, a former Sun columnist, said this week on Jeremy Vine, an eponymous talk show on Channel 5. Barnett said the “personal attack” Arday was subjected to was unfair, despite legitimate questions about plagiarism in his work and the lack of vetting by Cambridge University. People hold a sign at a Stand Up To Racism vigil to remember the Former Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who died aged 41 on Friday after resigning amid plagiarism allegations which he denied, in Trafalgar Square in London, Britain, on August 17, 2026. (Chris J. Ratcliffe/Reuters) “I think the same thing has happened in the past to Meghan, as to other public figures, because that’s what the British tabloids do,” he said. became entangled with much broader arguments about race, diversity and who belongs in Britain’s elite institutions. Marcus Ryder, chief executive of the Film and TV Charity and co-founder of the Sir Lenny Henry Center for Media Diversity, sees the problem as arising from a lack of diversity within the British media. As a result, he said, black people are often denied the freedom to simply succeed or fail as individuals. that black people, when we succeed and fail, are used for better or worse as part of larger narratives.” Arday’s rise became evidence of one narrative about racial progress. Her fall became evidence of another about diversity and merit. Ryder applies that directly to Meghan: She says her presence exposes contradictions in British society: a black woman entering one of Britain’s most privileged institutions while that institution itself is rooted in hereditary privilege. Now, the couple are no longer members of the royals. They have lived in California for six years. Much of the drama surrounding their departure has already been litigated, televised, published and reworked. There may not be much left to say. Ryder said she hopes the perspectives reflected in the couple’s coverage reflect “the real positivity that large sections of the population, especially black women, feel toward Meghan Markle.”
