Prince Charles gave Harry and Meghan ‘substantial sum’ - despite Sussexes' claims they were ‘cut off’

The Prince of Wales carried on supporting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex with a “substantial sum” in the months following Megxit, despite Harry claiming his family “literally cut me off financially”.

Heir to the throne Charles continued to fund the Sussexes until the summer of 2020, however Harry told Oprah Winfrey he stopped getting financial support from his family in the first quarter of that year.

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At a glance: 5 key points

- Funding for both of Charles’s sons, the Dukes of Sussex and Cambridge, and their families contributed to a £4.5 million bill, Charles’s Clarence House financial accounts showed.

- Harry and Meghan were still listed as receiving money from Charles’s Duchy of Cornwall income, despite leaving the monarchy at the end of March last year.

- The funding bill – plus other expenditure including Charles’s capital expenditure and transfer to reserves – dropped by around £1.2 million in the financial year after the Sussexes stopped being senior royals.

- In his Oprah interview, Harry said his family cut him off financially “in the first quarter of 2020”.

- A senior Clarence House spokesperson said that Harry and Meghan “are now financially independent”.

What’s been said

A senior Clarence House spokesperson said: “As we’ll all remember in January 2020 when the duke and duchess announced that they were going to move away from the working royal family, the duke said that they would work towards becoming financially independent.

“The Prince of Wales allocated a substantial sum to support them with this transition.

“That funding ceased in the summer of last year. The couple are now financially independent.”

Quizzed on the discrepancy in the duke’s remarks, the Clarence House spokesperson said: “I wouldn’t acknowledge that they are dramatically different. All I can tell you are the facts.”

A spokesperson for the Sussexes insisted there was no difference in timeline, and that Harry was actually referring to the first quarter of the fiscal reporting period in the UK, which runs from April to July.

“You are conflating two different timelines and it’s inaccurate to suggest that there’s a contradiction,” Harry and Meghan’s spokesperson said.

“The duke’s comments during the Oprah interview were in reference to the first quarter of the fiscal reporting period in the UK, which starts annually in April.

“This is the same date that the ‘transitional year’ of the Sandringham agreement began and is aligned with the timeline that Clarence House referenced.”

The Clarence House spokesperson described the couple’s departure from the working royal family as “a matter of enormous sadness to the family”, adding: “But the prince wanted to help make this work, [and] allocated a substantial sum to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, to help them with that transition.”

They added: “I betray no confidence when I say they’ve been very successful in becoming financially independent.”

Background

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle married in 2018, and in early 2020 the two announced in a joint statement that they would be stepping down as “senior” members of the royal family.

In 2021, a television special aired which saw Oprah Winfrey interview the two.

The interview was highly anticipated and it saw the pair cover a range of topics, from their wedding to Harry’s relationship with his father and brother.

Most notably, Meghan discussed things like her struggles with mental health, suicidal thoughts and how she was treated by the royal family. She alleged that an unnamed member of the royal family had made racist comments about their son, Archie’s, skin colour.

When asked by Oprah why they left the family, Harry said it was due to “a lack of support and understanding”.

Additional reporting by PA.

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