Why This Christmas Is ‘Make-Or-Break’ for Harry and Meghan’s Future: Expert
As the royal family prepares to gather at Sandringham for Christmas, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle remain absent for the seventh consecutive year. While recent months have brought tentative signals of contact between the Duke of Sussex and his father, King Charles, royal biographer Tom Bower believes the festive season highlights how narrow the couple’s options have become. In a recent interview, he talked about three interconnected pressure points that together determine whether Harry and Markle’s personal, professional, and familial paths remain viable beyond 2025.
Speaking to The Mirror, Bower said the first challenge for the couple would be the shrinking possibility of reconciliation within the royal family. Harry’s brief meeting with Charles in September offered a momentary opening, but it came with strict boundaries. “He was granted those 54 minutes with the King by the skin of his teeth,” Bower said, adding that the Duke was “told that not a word must be spoken about it.” Bower believes any progress was undone when Harry later visited Ukraine and told “a reporter that he has no regrets for anything he said in Spare.” This, he argued, played a significant role in reigniting Palace doubts. “There is just no way back for him,” Bower opined.
The second issue, as per the biographer, centers on security and Harry’s inability to return to Britain with his family. Earlier this year, the Duke lost a legal challenge against the Home Office over the decision to downgrade his publicly funded protection. After the ruling, Harry said he could not “see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point." Although reports later suggested that he had ‘won a Home Office review’ of his threat level, Bowel remains doubtful. “The King is not only battling for survival, literally battling to live, but he wants a legacy, and he wants to have a good transition to William, and Harry just gets in the way,” Bower said.
The third and final pressure point lies in the Duchess of Sussex’s commercial standing. Her lifestyle brand, As Ever, and Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, have faced mixed reception following the release of her holiday episode earlier this month. Bower describes the timing as decisive. “This Christmas is make-or-break time for Meghan because there are two main problems – money and profile,” he told The Mirror. Questioning the long-term appeal of As Ever, he added. “Are people prepared to pay $32 for a jar of honey from the Duchess of Sussex? If it doesn’t work this Christmas, they have a real problem about what they will do in 2026.” The holiday season, he argues, will test whether visibility translates into sales.
Taken together, Bower believes these unresolved issues leave Harry and Markle with limited room to maneuver. The Prince’s public role has narrowed since stepping back from Sentebale earlier this year, and with the next Invictus Games not scheduled until 2027, questions remain about his direction. “The fate of Sentebale is OK without him, so what’s he got?” the biographer asked. With Christmas just around the corner, the Sussexes remain publicly visible but increasingly disconnected from family and institution alike. According to Bower, how they navigate this period could shape their relevance well into 2026.