‘They Are Public Figures’ Harry and Meghan Push Back on King Charles’ Private Citizens Label

Prince Harry is about to spend much of September demonstrating the limits of describing him simply as a “private citizen”: appearing before cameras, addressing international audiences and representing charities whose work reaches across national borders.

Less than a week after guidance issued on King Charles’s behalf described Harry and Meghan Sussex as “akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests,” Harry’s September diary provides an immediate reminder of why sources close to the couple are pushing back on that wording.

And this is where the wording becomes more than semantics. PEOPLE reported on September 10 that sources close to Harry and Meghan are specifically pushing back against the description, arguing that “public figures” more accurately reflects their circumstances. The disagreement is not an attempt to restore their position as working royals. It centres on what their lives actually look like outside the institution, particularly when questions of visibility, privacy and security are involved.

“They are public figures,” a source close to the couple tells PEOPLE. “Members of the public know who they are. The idea that they can live a normal, ‘private’ life is sadly not realistic.”

Those close to the couple also argue that if Harry and Meghan were private individuals, the Lord Chamberlain would not have needed to issue a letter of formal guidance…..

Those close to Harry and Meghan similarly argue that describing the couple as public figures does not change their status as non-working royals. Rather, they say, it reflects the practical reality that Harry and Meghan remain internationally recognizable individuals whose ability to move through public life anonymously is limited.

PEOPLE

No documented public statement shows Harry or Meghan saying that they wanted to become private citizens. Their 2020 transition statement instead described them as “privately funded members of The Royal Family,” reflecting a change in funding and representation rather than a promise to disappear from public life.

Prince Harry’s September Schedule Shows a Public Life in Full View

Harry has a string of public engagements ahead of him in Britain and abroad. On September 17, he is expected at the inaugural Invictus Spirit Awards in London. The event will honour people and organisations whose work reflects the resilience, service and recovery at the heart of the Invictus movement. Harry, who founded the Invictus Games in 2014 and remains founder and patron of the Invictus Games Foundation, was also part of the judging panel that selected the award winners.

He will also take part in the launch of INSPIRE, the Invictus Games Foundation’s new education programme. Harry is expected to meet school pupils, play pickleball with students and participate in an assembly as the programme brings lessons drawn from the Invictus movement into education. The exact date has not yet been publicly released.

Four days after the Invictus Spirit Awards, Harry is scheduled to attend the WellChild Awards in London on September 21. The annual event celebrates seriously ill children and young people as well as the carers, nurses and professionals who support them. Harry has served as WellChild’s patron for 18 years and has remained publicly involved with the organisation after leaving royal duties.

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Then Harry will cross the Atlantic. On September 22 and 23, he is due to join the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, appearing alongside figures including World Bank Group President Ajay Banga and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. It will be Harry’s second appearance at the gathering, which this year will bring political, business and philanthropic figures together to discuss issues including artificial intelligence, climate resilience, democracy and health.

Harry also plans to complete a charity skydive this month in support of Sunnybrook and the True Patriot Love Foundation. The jump fulfils a promise he made after meeting 102-year-old Second World War veteran Ed Marshall in Canada last year. Marshall’s grandson Bailey will take part alongside Harry and fellow veterans.

The organisers have confirmed the event for September, although they have not released its exact date or location.

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None of those engagements turns Harry back into a working royal. He is not representing King Charles, carrying out state duties or acting on behalf of the Crown.

But they do illustrate the problem with collapsing two very different concepts into the phrase “private citizen.” A person can operate in a private capacity without living a private life.

Harry remains the founder and public face of an international veterans movement, the patron of major charities and a speaker invited onto global stages. Meghan remains one of the most recognisable women in the world while running commercial and charitable projects of her own. Their departure from working royal life changed who they represent. It did not erase their public profiles.

The Palace’s Own Guidance Underscores Harry and Meghan’s Public Status

What remains is the uncomfortable question of what the Palace actually wants Harry and Meghan to become.

The guidance may formally concern their status, but viewed alongside the continuing security dispute, it is difficult not to wonder whether the institution wants the couple treated as private citizens in practice as well as on paper. The guidance may formally concern their status, but viewed alongside the security dispute and Uganda’s response, it is reasonable to ask whether describing them this way could also encourage governments, military bodies and other institutions to treat them as figures detached from royal public life.

The problem is reality keeps getting in the way. Harry and Meghan are financially independent from the monarchy, yet they continue to attract global attention while supporting veterans, sick children, charitable organisations and international causes. Their argument that “service is universal” becomes harder to dismiss when Harry can fill a September diary with public-facing charitable work without receiving taxpayer funding to do it.

That inevitably invites comparisons with working royals. Prince William and Kate Middleton often carry out a lighter public diary than senior royals such as Princess Anne, despite operating within the publicly funded royal system. Harry, meanwhile, can undertake a run of high-profile charitable engagements independently of the Crown.

LBC’s Shelagh Fogarty identified the tension clearly. Harry may no longer be a working royal, she argued, but much of what he does still “looks” remarkably like the work of one. Her prediction was simple: “I think it’s going to get ugly.”

Perhaps that is the real question readers should watch. What happens when an institution wants Harry and Meghan regarded as private citizens, but the public, charities and international organisations simply refuse to see them that way?