Harry's Christmas remark tied to Meghan Markle's family feud, a decade on

Prince Harry’s description of the royals as the “family Meghan never had” during a December 2017 interview helped frame a public narrative about Meghan Markle’s connections to her relatives and set the stage for years of tension behind the scenes. In a BBC Radio 4 Today appearance he guest-edited, Harry said Meghan had found a family within the Firm that, in his view, complemented the life she had begun to build with him. The remark arrived days after Meghan, then a non-working royal in the wake of her engagement, joined Harry at the Sandringham Christmas celebrations for the first time, signaling a new level of acceptance from the monarchy at a moment when she was still negotiating her place in royal life. The interview’s tone and timing sparked immediate scrutiny given Meghan’s family history and the dynamics that would soon become public knowledge.

Days after the broadcast, Meghan’s half-sister Samantha Grant, the daughter of Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, pushed back on the prince’s words on X, insisting Meghan’s family had “always been there with her and for her” and framing the family unit as a constant presence rather than a surrogate family structure. The public exchange underscored a broader rift that had long been simmering in the Markle family. Meghan’s parents, Doria Ragland and Thomas Markle, had divorced when Meghan was six, and Meghan often spoke of a close bond with her father prior to the royal wedding. In a later remembrance, Meghan highlighted a pre-wedding relationship with her father that contrasted with the later estrangements that would unfold.

Meghan’s early time in the royal orbit was marked by a mix of warmth and tension. A month after Harry proposed in November 2017, Meghan attended the Sandringham Christmas gathering with him—a move that surprised observers, given she was not yet a working royal. Harry’s remarks about the family she “never had” were soon interpreted by some as signaling a bridging of two worlds, though the comment also fed a backlash that followed Meghan into her public life. The family’s response, including Samantha Grant’s insistence that Meghan’s familial bonds remained intact, highlighted how perceptions of belonging and support within the Markle clan clashed with media narratives about Meghan’s integration into the Royal Family.

Public fascination with Meghan’s relationship with her father intensified as coverage of their rift grew. Before the 2018 royal wedding, Meghan’s father faced personal difficulties, including two heart attacks, which led him to miss the ceremony in Windsor. When Meghan’s husband’s father, King Charles, learned of Meghan’s plan to walk down the aisle with a pace that suggested walking partway, he offered to walk with her, a gesture that was widely viewed as symbolic of the Firm’s willingness to embrace her. The broader context of these events—Meghan’s bond with her father, his involvement with paparazzi, and the resulting family tensions—set the stage for a public narrative in which the Markle side of the family would often be portrayed as fragmented or complicated.

Over time, the public story of Meghan’s family has been shaped by a sequence of disclosures and documentaries. In the 2019 Channel 5 documentary Meghan and the Markles: A Family at War, Meghan’s half-sister portrayed the rift as a growing distance between Meghan and her relatives, a sentiment echoed in subsequent interviews and chronicled in later projects. In 2022, Meghan and Harry described aspects of their early experiences at Sandringham in the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, with Meghan characterizing the first Sandringham Christmas as “amazing” and akin to a large family environment that she had long wanted. She recalled sharing moments with the late Prince Philip and described the festive atmosphere as one that felt welcoming, even as the broader family dynamics remained contested.

Eight years after Harry’s comment, Meghan’s relationships with her father and other relatives continued to be a central theme in discussions about the couple’s life afterMegxit. Public attention intensified around her father’s health in recent years, with reports that he underwent a life-saving leg amputation in the Philippines and that Meghan reportedly had no plans at times to visit him there. The Sunday Times and other outlets reported that Meghan had attempted contact via a hand-delivered letter after failing to reach him by email or phone, but that he had not replied. Meghan’s decision to reach out by letter, and her subsequent lack of confirmation about reconciliation, underscored the enduring complexities of their relationship amid a high-profile family narrative.

The broader arc of Meghan’s public life has continued to intertwine with her family history. Her decision in 2020 to step back from royal duties, later referred to as Megxit, marked a turning point that further distanced the couple from the formal structures of royal life. In interviews and a range of media projects since, Meghan has reflected on her early experiences at Sandringham and her hope for a sense of belonging within the royal family, while Harry has detailed his memories of those early Christmases as a measure of the familial warmth he believed existed. The narrative remains one of contrasts: a public story of integration and affection, set against private tensions and unresolved questions about how family relationships should function within the pressures and scrutiny of royal life.

Today, as Meghan and Harry reside in California, the family’s Christmas divides are a public record that has shaped broader discussions about belonging, duty, and media scrutiny within the modern monarchy. The specific moment that began the tense year of 2017—the Christmas greeting and the follow-up response from Meghan’s relatives—continues to be cited as a touchstone in debates about how the royal family, and Meghan’s side of it, navigates family ties in the glare of public life. The years since have neither fully resolved nor definitively closed that chapter, leaving observers to weigh the balance between personal loyalties and public roles in a modern, highly scrutinized royal narrative.