Trump turns his guns on Meghan
The challenge that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle face as they attempt to become beloved celebrities in President Donald Trump’s new anti-woke America was underscored by Trump’s brutal, highly personal attack on Meghan this weekend.
Asked if he would force Harry to leave the U.S., as he frequently hinted before the election, Trump told the New York Post: “I don’t want to do that. I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with his wife. She’s terrible.”
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex at the opening ceremony of the 2025 Invictus GamesSamir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage
In truth, Trump was probably never going to deport Harry. It may not have been practical and would certainly have annoyed the one foreign ruler he seems to actually like; King Charles III. True, British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson was denied entry to the U.S. over admissions of drug use in 2013, but talking up the possibility of giving Harry the boot was always more about staking out a particularly fertile patch of ground in the culture wars than enforcing immigration law equally.
That said, using an astonishingly personal attack on Meghan to distract from the reversal of Harry’s deportation is a classic Trump move. Plus, it comes at an inopportune time as Meghan needs to accumulate good favor ahead of the launch of her Netflix homemaking show.
Harry’s immigration status has been under the microscope in recent days after the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing conservative think tank that authored Project 2025, relaunched its legal efforts to force the U.S. authorities to release details of his immigration application.
The suit was first launched after Harry revealed he had used hard, soft, and psychedelic drugs in his memoir, Spare—in which Harry, among other stories, shared about the time he got high on mushrooms at Friends star Courteney Cox’s house. He also revealed he had used cocaine at 17 “to feel different.”
The pressure group claims that since such a declaration usually bars an individual from immigrating into the U.S., this means either Harry lied on the forms or was given a sweetheart deal by the Biden administration.
They sued in court to find out which, but in September a federal judge ruled the paperwork would remain private.
However, the Heritage Foundation has now sought to appeal that ruling and a judge said on Thursday he was in principle in favor of releasing the documents.
Trump told Nigel Farage in a GB News interview last year: “We’ll have to see if they know something about the drugs, and if he lied they’ll have to take appropriate action.”
Farage asked if “appropriate action” could mean “not staying in America,” to which Trump replied: “Oh I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me. You just have to tell me. You would have thought they would have known this a long time ago.”
The Sussex-Trump feud dates to a 2016 Comedy Central panel show in which Meghan, then an actress and not linked to Harry, expressed her contempt for Trump, labeling him “misogynistic” and “divisive,” and joking that she might move to Canada if Trump was elected president.
Trump later famously referred to her comment as “nasty” ahead of his state visit to the U.K. in June 2019, when he was president and Meghan was married to Harry.
In 2022, Trump told fellow Meghan critic Piers Morgan: “Harry is whipped like no person I think I’ve ever seen.” He predicted the couple would divorce, saying, ‘It’ll end, and it’ll end bad… I want to know what’s going to happen when Harry decides he’s had enough of being bossed around… Or maybe when she decides that she likes some other guy better. I want to know what’s going to happen when it ends, OK?‘”
Trump used an interview with the New York Post published Saturday to praise Harry’s estranged older brother, William, with whom he met in Paris in December.
“I think William is a great young man,” he said.
Comeback kids
A difficult week for Meghan and Harry—which saw Meghan ridiculed by an incredulous internet for giving a homeless teenager a Billy Eilish t-shirt, and reveal her cooking show had no recipes—ended on a high with the couple feted at the opening of the seventh winter Invictus Games in Vancouver Saturday night.
The couple brought the charm and looked smitten with each other at the opening ceremony.
Meghan took the mic to introduce her husband and gave a heartfelt shoutout to the injured veterans, saying, “You are his family.”
Later in the stands, Meghan was spotted resting her head on Harry’s shoulder, and yes, there was a kiss. The whole scene had some people online wondering if they were auditioning for a rom-com.
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex at the opening ceremony of the 2025 Invictus GamesSamir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage
Coldplay’s Chris Martin, backed by the Universal Gospel Choir, delivered a goosebump-worthy rendition of the Invictus Games anthem, which he wrote back in 2014 using lyrics from the Invictus poem by William Ernest Henley, before switching gears and belted out Coldplay’s Higher Power, pausing just long enough to give Harry a shoutout.
Meghan posted plenty of content to her new Instagram page via her stories.
Working away
On the other side of the world, Prince Edward and Princess Sophie were visiting Nepal. Sophie visited a center for women and girls and told the London Sunday Times: “So often women are excluded or at the bad end of the deal. Unfortunately, women are affected the most when there are difficult issues to deal with. So whether it be conflict or other causes, we’re starting to see the effects.
“In Nepal, one of the things we’ve been focusing on is climate change and I’m looking at that because we’ve got populations becoming more at risk due to it, who are going to find it harder to remain where they are. Therefore, if they have to move, they migrate and then become incredibly vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
“If people in my position don’t champion people like that, they have very little voice. And they are so very vulnerable and in many countries there isn’t a lot of help for them. So it’s not an easy subject but it’s important that people are aware of it. I think they have become more aware of it. In some of the more recent conflicts that have happened, people have really woken up to the fact that these are very real issues. Historically, they’ve always been there. But it’s been hard for survivors to have a voice. And to change behaviors, you have to keep banging the drum. So I keep on banging the drum.”
The price of fame
A new poll in the Telegraph spills the tea: the Duke of Sussex is now officially more Hollywood than Buckingham Palace, according to most Brits.
The survey found that just 21 percent of Brits still see Harry as more royal than celebrity. Meanwhile, 40 percent say he’s basically just another A-lister, and 20 percent think he’s straddling both worlds.
Of the 1,091 people polled, 16 percent declared him neither a royal nor a celeb (ouch), while the rest just shrugged and said, “Dunno.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex packed their bags for North America in 2020, leaving behind royal duties (but taking the drama with them). They still have their duke and duchess titles, but don’t use His and Her Royal Highness anymore. Harry also lost his military titles and hasn’t seen his father in a year.
