Prince Harry appeared glum at his last ever royal engagement (Image: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
The Duke of Sussex, 40, began experiencing fractured relationships with his family when he announced he was quitting Royal life in 2020.
A TikTok video of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on their final official royal engagement has gone viral and appears to show the duke, 40, in a “nervous” state.
After announcing their intentions to step back from the Royal Fold in 2020 and move overseas to live a more independent life, the couple attended their final royal engagements in March that year.
While this was considered by many as an emotional time, with fans of the couple desperate for them not to move abroad, it also appeared that the final week of royal duty – dubbed the “Farewell Tour” – was also tough for Harry and Meghan.
In a resurfaced video of the couple’s last official appearance with the rest of the senior Royals at the Commonwealth Day event at Westminster Abbey, the duke can be seen looking sad.
The TikTok video plays the clip of the event with a voiceover of Meghan and Harry speaking about the event in their Netflix docuseries Harry and Meghan, released in 2022.
Prince Harry said: “We were nervous seeing the family. Because all the TV cameras and everyone watching at home and everybody watching in the audience… it’s like living through a soap opera where everybody else views you as entertainment.
“I felt really distant from the rest of my family which was interesting because so much of how they operate is about what it looks like rather than what it feels like. And it looked cold. But it also felt cold.”
Robert Lacey spoke about the moment in his 2020 book Battle of Brothers. He wrote: “Observers also noted that Harry’s face was ‘quite tense and unsmiling’—and that when William sat down close to him, he barely greeted his brother.
“Throughout the service, Meghan megawatted away with her best TV smile but, as the ceremony progressed, Harry appeared to grow gloomier.
“According to one observer, ‘his accelerated blinking even suggested he might have been fighting back tears.'”
Since going ahead with his plans and moving to America in 2020, where he now lives in a Montecito mansion with his wife and two children Prince Archie, 5, and three-year-old Princess Lilibet, the duke has been estranged from some members of his family including his brother Prince William, with the pair believed to no longer be on speaking terms since the release of Harry’s memoir Spare last year.
The duke is still on speaking terms with his father King Charles, despite not seeing him on his last UK visit.
