Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Left Off the Met Gala List — and an Old Ally May Be Behind It
For Meghan in particular, the omission must have stung as the co-chairs of this year's MET were close friends of the Duchess.
Every May, the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art become the most coveted red carpet in the world. This year, they will do so without the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Invitations for the May 4th Met Gala have been sent — and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were not among the recipients. For Markle in particular, the omission must have stung. With this year's event centered on the theme of Costume Art, and two of its co-chairs, Beyoncé and Venus Williams — sharing at least a peripheral orbit with the Duchess's social world — there was quiet speculation that this could finally be her year. It was not!
Royal commentator Paula Froelich, who broke the story on her Substack, says the door was closed long before the invitations were sent out — and the hand that closed it belongs to one of fashion's most powerful gatekeepers, Anna Wintour.
The Vogue Global Editorial Director, who co-chairs the gala alongside Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, and Venus Williams, has never been particularly warm toward Markle, sources say. Whatever patience remained, Froelich reports, has now been exhausted entirely. Wintour's loyalties have long been an open secret — she counts King Charles and the wider British royal family among her close friends — and she notably never offered Markle an American Vogue cover. A protracted negotiation over a potential 2022 British Vogue cover reportedly collapsed after Markle pushed for editorial control, a global cover, and a direct Zoom call with Wintour herself. It was, by all accounts, a demand too far.
"Nobody gets that. Not even Beyoncé," a source told Froelich.
The tensions did not end there. Markle's uninvited appearance at Balenciaga's Paris show last autumn only added to the existing frostiness, with insiders describing her late arrival and red carpet posturing as tone-deaf. Meanwhile, lead Met Gala sponsors Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez are also said to have cooled on the couple considerably, following the now-infamous Kris Jenner birthday party incident, in which the Sussexes reportedly pressured the Kardashian family to scrub social media photographs taken the night before the UK's Remembrance Day.
The news of the Sussexes' Met Gala snub comes after a video of Wintour circulated online earlier, telling a rather different story. In it, the editor praised Markle's wedding dress as "brilliant, sophisticated, and chic," and admired her decision to walk down the aisle alone as a mark of independence. She also pushed back against reports that Markle was difficult, laughingly dismissing the infamous "5 a.m. wake-up calls" narrative and describing her simply as a Californian — "a normal girl" who does yoga and meditation.
More striking still was a candid encounter the two women shared in Paris recently. Captured on video and quickly shared across social media, the interaction showed little sign of any simmering feud. Markle greeted Wintour warmly, the pair exchanged hugs and kisses on the cheek, and — according to The Mirror — Wintour could be heard telling Markle, "Nice to see you," before glancing at her chic all-white ensemble and adding, "Beautiful, Cherie. You look amazing."
The exchange was, by any measure, decidedly warm, and it appeared to put a significant dent in the long-reported feud narrative, until now!
