Hugh Grosvenor won’t invite the Sussexes to his June 2024 wedding

Omid Scobie’s Endgame was published by HarperCollins, a subsidiary of News Corp, which is owned by the Murdoch family. The only print interview Scobie did in the British media (that I saw) was in the Times of London, which is one piece of the Murdochs’ print-media empire. While the Times ran several stories about Endgame and they even referred to Scobie as “Harry and Meghan’s cheerleader/biggest fan,” the outlet has not devoted any space to the Dutch-edition of Endgame “naming” the racist royals. It seems that this is being dealt with in-house, and until then, News Corp isn’t throwing Scobie under the bus. It’s fascinating to watch the Times go radio silent on that part of the story, especially given the howling in the Mail, Telegraph, Express and Mirror. I’m very curious to see how that part of the story plays out, honestly.

So, with corporate seemingly dictating that no royal reporter can dig around the Dutch mistranslation, what’s a royal reporter like Roya Nikkhah to do? It sounds like she just ran whatever dumbf–k story Kensington Palace handed her on a plate. Behold, Harry and Meghan are not invited to a fancy society wedding in the UK. Oh noes, you guys.

If the Duke and Duchess of Sussex need any reminder of the fault lines caused by the royal rift, it will come next summer at the wedding of Prince Harry’s lifelong friend Hugh Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster. The King and Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales are on the invitation list for what will be the society wedding of the year, when Grosvenor, 32, marries Olivia Henson, 30, at Chester Cathedral on June 7.

But Harry and Meghan will be notably absent. Grosvenor, one of Britain’s richest men and closest friends of the royal family, has decided to exclude the Sussexes to avoid a family clash in the House of Windsor. It is thought that Prince William is in the running to be best man for Grosvenor, a godfather to Prince George, ten, who is also expected to attend.

Harry and Meghan’s exclusion will [be] a particular blow to the couple because Grosvenor is so close to Harry that it can be revealed that he is also a godfather to the Sussexes’ son, Prince Archie. He is thought to be the only friend of William and Harry’s chosen as a godparent by both. The Sussexes have not publicly named Archie’s godparents, but they include Tiggy Pettifer, a former nanny to William and Harry, Mark Dyer, a former equerry to Charles, and Harry’s friend Charlie van Straubenzee.

Grosvenor, who inherited 140,000 acres of land in Oxfordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire and Scotland, as well as 300 acres in Mayfair and Belgravia in central London from his father, is the King’s godson and had an official role in Charles’s procession at the coronation in May.

It is understood that he had wanted the Sussexes to attend his wedding and originally planned to invite them, but has decided against it, conscious that the drama surrounding the couple risks overshadowing the day and causing tension for Charles, Camilla, William and Kate. A spokesman for Grosvenor said: “We are not in a position to comment on the guest list.”

A friend of William and Harry’s said: “It’s incredibly sad it has come to this. Hugh is one of very few close friends of William and Harry’s who has maintained strong bonds and a line of communication with both. He wishes they could put their heads together and patch things up, but realises it’s unlikely to happen before the wedding. He wanted to avoid anything overshadowing the day, especially for Olivia, and doesn’t want any awkwardness.”

Meghan may be less disappointed than her husband to miss out on Grosvenor’s wedding celebrations, expected to be held at Eaton Hall, at the heart of his 11,000-acre estate in Cheshire. Scobie has said the duchess is loath to return to England and refuses to “dive back into the soap opera”, a comment that has caused amusement behind palace walls, where the Sussexes’ interview with Winfrey was dubbed “Soap Oprah”.

But for Harry, who was keen to attend one of his oldest and closest friend’s nuptials, it will be a bitter reminder of the repercussions of his departure from the royal fold. Last month a friend of the couple said the Sussexes would “not decline an invitation to spend time with His Majesty” over the Christmas or summer holidays at Sandringham or Balmoral, noting that “as of yet, there have not been any invitations for the holidays”. But with mutual friends of Charles and the Sussexes conceding that it is impossible for them to attend the same event, the likelihood of an invitation from the King looks more remote than ever.

[From The Times]

There’s a subset of royal gossip these days which always amounts to “William threw a tantrum, demanded that someone snub Harry, then the person begrudgingly agrees to the snub and William leaks it to ‘punish’ Harry.” See also: President Biden, Dr. Biden, Tom Bradby, David Beckham and more. What happened here is that Hugh Grosvenor wanted to extend an invitation to the Sussexes, then William threw a massive hissy fit, one which threatened to overshadow the nuptials, so Hugh Grosvenor agreed to not invite the Sussexes. Who probably would not have even come in the first place. This was Kensington Palace desperate to announce some “punishment” for Harry and Meghan, and all they could get was “you can’t attend a June wedding or William’s head will explode.” Not really the winning narrative the royal clownshow thinks it is.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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