The return of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle marks the latest bombshell in the long-running saga surrounding the couple since the Megxit crisis.

Harry and Meghan announced in January 2020 that they wanted to step down as senior royals for a dual life, earning their own money in the US and supporting the monarch.

Queen Elizabeth II held a Sandringham summit to solve “Megxit” and the outcome was that the Sussexes’ semi-royal role was deemed untenable – they were either in or out.

Six years later, they are moving back and setting up home in the UK once again with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet enrolled in British schools.

The couple headed to California and quit as senior working royals completely in March 2020, just as the Covid pandemic took hold.

But they continued to cause ructions from the US.

In a television interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey while Prince Philip was ill in hospital in 2021, they claimed an unnamed royal had made a racist remark about their son’s skin tone before he was born and said that the monarchy failed to help a suicidal Meghan.

Meghan also revealed it was Kate who made her cry at a bridesmaid dress fitting ahead of the Sussexes’ wedding, and that the Palace refused to correct the initial reports that it was the other way round.

Harry’s grandmother Elizabeth II refused to play out the matter on a public stage, saying in a statement that the issues raised would be dealt with privately as a family, but that “some recollections may vary”.

Meanwhile, Meghan was accused of bullying Palace aides, which she strongly denied, and the pair gained a reputation of being unable to retain staff

The Sussexes, no longer bankrolled by the King, then the Prince of Wales, went on to sign multi-million-pound deals with Netflix and Spotify.

Megxit became permanent in 2021, and the Queen stripped a devastated Harry of his military titles and royal patronages, with the Sussexes declaring they would always live a life of service.

They went on to welcome a daughter, Lilibet Diana, in June 2021, a younger sister to Archie – but their claim that the Queen gave her blessing for them to use her childhood family nickname left the monarch “as angry as I’d ever seen her”, an aide revealed.

Harry and Meghan continued to fire off allegations in a Netflix documentary and the duke’s bestselling autobiography Spare – both released in the months that followed the late Queen’s death and at the start of the King’s reign.

Harry claimed his “archnemesis” brother “Willy” physically attacked him and knocked him to the floor into a dog bowl in a row over Meghan’s alleged rude behaviour, and that the King put his own interests above Harry’s, and was jealous of Meghan and Kate.

He also attacked the reputation of his stepmother Queen Camilla, saying her willingness to forge relationships with the British press made her “dangerous” and describing her attempts to rehabilitate her “image” at his cost, during a series of interviews to promote his book.

Harry later accused the royal family of a “horrible reaction” on the day Queen Elizabeth II died, and said he was not invited on the plane taking his relatives to Balmoral to see her.

In a bitter blow, he was also denied the chance to wear military uniform at his grandmother’s funeral as a non-working royal.

In the years that followed, the duke has carried out a smattering of visits to the UK.

He attended the King’s coronation in 2023 – without Meghan – but the trip was a whirlwind one with the duke, who had no distinct role at the service, leaving immediately after to return to the US on what was Archie’s fourth birthday.

Harry’s pursuit of legal action against the Home Office over his security in the UK is said to have caused difficulties for the King as head of state, who was described at the time by the duke as having stopped taking his calls.

When Charles was diagnosed with cancer in 2024, Harry rushed to London to see him, but they spent less than 45 minutes together before the King left for Sandringham.

The duke – who once said he had become “professional” at litigation – took legal action against the tabloids, seeing some success at the High Court, in particular after settling his case against the published of The Sun, receiving substantial damages and securing a “full and unequivocal apology” for both “serious intrusion” into his private life and that of Diana, Princess of Wales, and “unlawful activities”.

In an ITV documentary about his fight, he said his determination to fight the tabloids was a “central piece” in destroying his relationship with his family, with the “rift” in part due to his mission.

William is said to have reached a settlement with News Group Newspapers for a “huge sum of money” over hacking claims in 2020.

Harry recently lost his High Court claim, made with a group of celebrities, against the Daily Mail’s publishers over alleged unlawful information-gathering.

Meghan, meanwhile, has faced relentless online hate over the years, describing herself as the most trolled person in the world.

The pair set up their Archewell Foundation focused on supporting humanitarian relief, campaigning for child online safety and supporting community projects, and later rebranded it as Archewell Philanthropies.

Harry recently walked away from his Sentebale charity after nearly 20 years, following a bitter dispute with its chair of trustees – a move described as “emotionally absolutely devastating” for the duke.

The Sussexes signed a watered-down first look first-lookNetflix in 2025, after Meghan’s lifestyle show With Love was panned by critics.

The couple’s lucrative media deal with Spotify in 2023 ended after one season of Meghan’s podcast Archetypes, with the company’s executives branding them “grifters”.

Life in Montecito for Harry has seen him taking his dogs for walks on the beach, surfing and spending quality time with his children in his Californian bubble and making comedy sketch appearances on US chat shows.

Meghan has pursued her As Ever brand selling jam, wine and flower sprinkles.

The couple have also focused on their philanthropic charity work, and Harry channelled his energy into suing the UK government over security, insisting his wife and children were not safe in the country of his birth.

When he lost a Court of Appeal challenge against the Home Office over his security arrangements while in the UK in 2025, he told the BBC he “can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the UK”.

But the Telegraph reported that Harry wanted a “refuge” in the UK and the “freedom to enjoy British summers, see friends and come and go without the ‘circus’ that has surrounded recent visits”

The duke has enjoyed a rapprochement in his previously troubled relationship with his father in recent months.

Harry and Meghan took Archie and Lili to see their grandfather for the first time in four years in July, when they visited Charles and Camilla at Highgrove in Gloucestershire.

But there has been no such reunion so far with William, who faced dealing with the “brutal” experience of both the King and Kate being diagnosed with cancer in the same year.

Harry revealed after the publication of Spare in 2023 that he had, in fact, enough material for two books.

“There are some things that have happened, especially between me and my brother, and to some extent between me and my father, that I just don’t want the world to know,” he said.

“Because I don’t think they would ever forgive me.”