Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for W+P)
Prince Harry is addressing rumors that he and Meghan Markle are headed for divorce.
“Apparently we’ve bought or moved house 10, 12 times,” Harry, 40, joked during the New York Times DealBook Summit in New York City on Wednesday, December 4. “We’ve apparently divorced maybe 10, 12 times as well. So it’s just like, what?”
Andrew Ross Sorkin, who interviewed Harry onstage at the event, asked him about the public fascination with his marriage as well as speculation as to why he and Meghan, 43, have attended recent events separately.
“‘Why are you making, doing independent events? Why aren’t you doing them together?’” Sorkin, 47, questioned, to which Harry replied, “Because you invited me, you should have known!”
“True,” Sorkin responded. “Is that normal for you? The second there’s an article — she’s in California, you’re in New York — they say, ‘Well, what is happening with these two, right?’ Is that a good thing for you, in a way, that there’s so much interest in you?”
Harry, the son of the late Princess Diana — whose every move fueled tabloid fodder — said that, no, “that’s definitely not a good thing.”
The prince continued, “It’s hard to keep up with, but that’s why you just sort of ignore it. The people I feel most sorry about are the trolls. Their hopes are just built and built, and it’s like, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’ and then it doesn’t happen. So I feel sorry for them. Genuinely, I do.”
Harry told Sorkin that he had “no doubt” that their talk “will be spun or twisted somehow against me, and maybe you yourself will be trolled relentlessly. … For that, I can only apologize, but you did invite me, so it’s not my fault.”
Harry and Meghan, who tied the knot in 2018, relocated to America after announcing in January 2020 that they planned to step down from their roles as senior working royals. The pair initially resided with Tyler Perry before moving into their house in Montecito, California, where they currently reside with their two kids: son Archie, 5, and daughter Lilibet, 3.
“I enjoy living [in the U.S.] and bringing my kids up here, it’s a part of my life that I never thought I was going to live and it feels as though it’s the life that my mom wanted for me,” Harry told Sorkin on Wednesday.
Harry said his “main goal” is to be “the best dad and best husband” he can be. “The reason why these things have happened is because of my 10 years in the military and the values and principles I live by,” he said. “It is becoming increasingly hard for people that have values and principles as the world starts to change. But the thing I want to be known for is that, ‘He stuck to his values and always stayed true to that principle.’”
While attending the NYT Summit on Wednesday, Harry also discussed how he and Meghan were left without the same level of security they had in the U.K. (After stepping down from their roles, the couple lost state-funded police protection during U.K. visits. He still has a pending case against the government that could restore the security.)
“I should’ve never had security removed in the first place,” he said. “But the disclosure process has been troubling and enlightening and I just have to now sit and wait until April.”