Palace aides ‘want Harry and Meghan to give up royal titles’ after podcast comments

Senior aides at Buckingham Palace have reportedly called on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to give up their titles after Prince Harry’s latest tell-all interview in the US.

The prince is said to have left senior royals baffled by his “disgraceful” and “woeful lack of compassion” when he appeared last week on an episode of actor Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast.

During the 90-minute conversation, Harry spoke about his father, Prince Charles’, parenting style and the “pain” it caused him – as well as the way the Queen and Prince Philip chose to parent Charles.

Harry and Meghan are subsequently being urged to put their titles into “abeyance”, in the same way their HRH honourifics were when the “Megxit” deal was reached, according to reports which first surfaced in this week’s Mail on Sunday.

Aides – all of who spoke under the condition of anonymity – supposedly told the paper that members of the royal family are “appalled that he could do this to the Queen when the Duke of Edinburgh is barely in his grave”.

“To drag his grandfather into this is so shocking and disrespectful,” one said.

Another criticised Harry for “lecturing” people on how to “live our lives” from his “£11m mansion”.

“The Duke of Sussex has now spent a significant amount of time emphasising that he’s no different to anyone else and attacking the institution which he says has caused him so much pain,” a senior courtier allegedly said.

“There is a growing feeling that if you dislike the institution that much, you shouldn't have the titles. They should just become Harry and Meghan. And if they refuse to do that, they have to explain why not.”

While no formal moves to strip the pair of their titles are understood to be in motion, if true the pressure coming from inside the palace shows how deep the sense of betrayal runs between the wider family and the couple, following their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey in March.

Royalists are bound to be disappointed after it appeared that Harry, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge made amends at the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral last month.

Harry, who now lives in Montecito, in California, is due to fly back to the UK for the unveiling of a new statue of his mother, Princess Diana, on 1 July.

The 36-year-old royal told Mr Shepard that he and Meghan, who are expecting their second child, moved to the US to break the cycle of “genetic pain”.

Speaking about his father Harry said: “He’s treated me the way that he was treated. There’s a lot of genetic pain and suffering that gets passed on anyway. Isn’t life about breaking the cycle? There’s no blame.”

He also compared life as a royal to “a mixture between The Truman Show and being in a zoo” – referring to the 1998 Jim Carrey film about a man who is oblivious to the fact that his entire life is a TV show.

Harry appeared on the podcast to promote his new mental health series, The Me You Can't See, which he has produced with Ms Winfrey and launches on Apple TV+ on Friday.