The Megxit Myth Returns as the Mail Questions Meghan’s Motives Again

Six years after Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex stepped back as senior working royals, the Daily Mail is still struggling to accept the most basic fact about their departure. Prince Harry made a choice.

Two recent pieces by Alison Boshoff and Maureen Callahan revive the same exhausted story that shaped coverage in 2020. Boshoff and Callahan portray Harry as a once-blinded prince slowly waking from Meghan’s influence, while casting Meghan as the calculating outsider whose American ambitions supposedly pulled him away from Britain. Boshoff’s article claims there is a plan to “reverse Megxit,” while Callahan, who has a history of grotesque commentary, including claiming Meghan’s children “hate” her, and fantasising about Meghan dying young, describes Meghan as “two-faced” and suggests Harry’s only route back is for his wife to become quieter and less visible.

The evidence for this dramatic reversal is remarkably thin. Harry has rebuilt some contact with his father, and his children reportedly spent private time with King Charles. But the Mail’s conclusion that this means the so-called “Megxit” is being reversed does not follow from the facts. The term itself, coined to blame a woman of colour for a joint decision, is a racist and sexist framing that has distorted coverage from the beginning.

A friend of Prince Harry says: ‘There is definitely a feeling in his camp that he has started to feel a bit unwelcome in America. That has been an increasing and significant shift in sentiment, a feeling that the American dream might not be all that it was cracked up to be. I am told that this is coming from Meghan as well as from him. I hear that Meghan is all for rekindling with and reconnecting with Harry’s English side. She is fully behind it.’

Another source, who is less sympathetic to the Sussexes, says they suspect a different kind of cooling may lie behind the manoeuvres. The source said: ‘I don’t think he’s ever wanted to be estranged from his family. I think when he was madly in love with Meghan he could be blind enough to choose her. Now things are different, and the veil is lifting.’

Alison Boshoff, Daily Mail

Abandoned now are the kohl-rimmed eyes, gazing forlornly at Oprah Winfrey as Meghan levels accusations about race and claims that she was denied help for her mental health. Nope! Meghan is suddenly super encouraging of her husband’s wish to reconcile with his family and spend more time in the UK.

What seems even more telling is that this well-sourced People magazine cover story doesn’t even acknowledge Meghan’s complete about-face. Then again, when you wear two faces, as I believe Meghan does, perhaps it’s felt there is no need to explain.

Maureen Callahan Daily Mail

Reconciliation Is Not a Return to Royal Work

The Daily Mail repeatedly blurs the difference between repairing a family relationship and resuming an official role within the monarchy. Harry can want his children to know King Charles without returning to the Royal Household. He can attend Invictus events in Birmingham without becoming a working royal. He can stay at a royal residence during a visit without accepting public funding or carrying out duties for the sovereign. Calling ordinary family contact a plan to “reverse Megxit” rewrites both the original departure and the present situation.

Boshoff’s article relies heavily on an unnamed and openly unsympathetic source who claims Harry was once “blind enough” to choose Meghan but that “the veil is lifting.” That sentence contains the entire old narrative. Harry’s love for his wife becomes a form of temporary blindness. The press treats his decisions as evidence of manipulation. They then present any desire to reconnect with Britain as proof that Meghan’s influence is weakening.

Callahan takes the same premise even further. Callahan brands Meghan as “two-faced,” blames her motives on humiliation and financial panic, and insists Harry’s only path back to his family requires his wife to become quieter and less visible. Harry cannot possess agency within this framing. When he stands beside Meghan, she controls him. Contact his father, and he is escaping her. Support reconciliation, and she must have a hidden commercial motive.

The Missing Story and the Contradictory Failure Narrative

Both columns reduce the Sussexes’ departure to ambition, resentment and a desire to profit from royalty. Missing from that version is the hostile coverage that began years before January 2020. Harry publicly condemned racist and sexist harassment against Meghan in 2016. The term “Megxit”, a racist and sexist construct designed to blame a woman of colour for a joint decision, circulated among her detractors before the couple even announced they were stepping back. Also absent are the couple’s security concerns, Harry’s fear for his family and Meghan’s account of experiencing suicidal thoughts while pregnant. Callahan mocks Meghan’s “kohl-rimmed eyes” during the Oprah interview, reducing a discussion of mental distress to a sneer about appearance and performance. That cruelty is not separate from the story of why they left. It illustrates it.

Yet both pieces also insist that the Sussexes’ “American dream” has collapsed and that they are likely running out of money, claims neither article substantiates with any access to their finances. The articles contradict themselves at every turn. The Sussexes are portrayed as irrelevant failures, yet the Daily Mail continues to produce long, heavily promoted features analysing their finances, marriage, movements and supposed future plans. The timing makes the failure narrative particularly strained. With Love, Meghan has just received a Daytime Emmy nomination, yet Callahan still presents Meghan’s American career as an unqualified collapse. Apparently, Harry and Meghan’s relevance has expired, just not in time for the Mail to stop profiting from it.

Meghan Is Condemned Whatever She Does

Neither of the Daily Mail articles produces a named official, formal proposal or palace document showing that Harry and Meghan want to resume royal duties. Instead, readers are offered a parade of anonymous friends, unnamed insiders, hostile sources and speculative claims. Contradiction is not a problem because the objective is not clarity. It is narrative saturation. The Daily Mail describes Harry’s security concerns as chaos, pressure and public embarrassment, yet the first article also acknowledges reported credible threats and says arrangements were improved during the family’s visit. That admission supports Harry’s long-standing argument that security conditions are central to whether his family can return safely, but the paper would rather mock the concern than engage with it seriously.

Callahan’s piece makes the trap particularly obvious. Speak publicly, and Meghan is attacking the monarchy. Remain unseen during a private visit and her absence becomes proof of humiliation. Support Harry reconnecting with his family, and she is chasing royal status. Had she opposed the meeting, she would undoubtedly have been blamed for keeping him away. This is a closed system of hostility, where no action is permitted to exist without being turned into an accusation. Anonymous sources, contradictory narratives and a refusal to engage with security realities all serve the same purpose: keeping Meghan trapped in a story she was never allowed to win.

The Daily Mail Needs Meghan to Remain the Villain

The simplest explanation is the one both articles avoid. Harry may want a relationship with his father while remaining committed to Meghan, their children and the independent life they built. Meghan may support that reconciliation without wanting to return as a working royal.

That possibility would destroy the central myth of “Megxit.” It would mean Harry was not kidnapped by an ambitious wife. It would mean reconciliation does not require Meghan’s defeat. So the Daily Mail returns to the same old script: Harry is confused but redeemable. Meghan is manipulative and increasingly desperate.

The story has barely changed because it was never designed to explain what happened. It was designed to decide who should be blamed. And, as always, the answer is Meghan.