Prince Harry reunites with father King Charles III for first time in over a year

Prince Har­ry and his father, King Charles III, have reunit­ed amid the roy­al fam­i­ly’s estrange­ment from the out­spo­ken prince.

Har­ry, who has been vocal about his expe­ri­ences of grow­ing up in the British monar­chy, arrived at Charles’ Lon­don res­i­dence on Wednes­day, Sept. 10, for their first meet­ing in 19 months and a pos­si­ble first step toward end­ing a much-pub­li­cized rift.

The prince’s car was seen arriv­ing at Charles’ Clarence House home. Charles, 76, held a roy­al audi­ence there ear­li­er in the day.

USA TODAY has reached out to Buck­ing­ham Palace and rep­re­sen­ta­tives for Prince Har­ry for com­ment.

Har­ry, the Duke of Sus­sex, last saw his father in Feb­ru­ary 2024, short­ly after it was announced that Charles was under­go­ing treat­ment for an unspec­i­fied form of can­cer.

The unex­pect­ed reunion comes amid Har­ry’s vis­it to the U.K. On Sun­day, Sept. 7, the third anniver­sary of the death of his grand­moth­er, Queen Eliz­a­beth II, Har­ry attend­ed the Well­Child Awards, an annu­al char­i­ty event for seri­ous­ly ill chil­dren. On Sept. 10, Har­ry, 40, vis­it­ed a research cen­ter that spe­cial­izes in improv­ing treat­ment for vic­tims with blast injuries.

Since Har­ry and his wife, Duchess Meghan, moved to Cal­i­for­nia in 2020, they have been high­ly crit­i­cal of the roy­al fam­i­ly and the insti­tu­tion in inter­views, TV doc­u­men­taries and Har­ry’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy, “Spare.”

Har­ry had some par­tic­u­lar­ly barbed com­ments for Charles and his elder broth­er, heir-to-the-throne Prince William, lead­ing to a total break­down in his rela­tion­ship with his fam­i­ly.

What has Prince Har­ry said about King Charles III?
In “Spare,” Har­ry reflect­ed that Charles “was­n’t great at show­ing emo­tions under nor­mal cir­cum­stances.” The Duke of Sus­sex also recalled a tense con­fronta­tion with Charles and Prince William at the funer­al of Har­ry’s grand­fa­ther, Prince Philip, which came a year after Har­ry and Meghan stepped down from their senior roles in the roy­al fam­i­ly.

“Every time I ven­tured a new expla­na­tion, start­ed a new line of thought, one or both of them would cut me off,” Har­ry wrote. “Willy in par­tic­u­lar did­n’t want to hear any­thing. After he’d shut me down sev­er­al times, he and I began snip­ing, say­ing some of the same things we’d said for months — years. It got so heat­ed that Pa raised his hands. Enough!

“He stood between us, look­ing up at our flushed faces. ‘Please, boys – don’t make my final years a mis­ery.’ ”

Har­ry, who recent­ly lost a legal bat­tle with the British gov­ern­ment over his secu­ri­ty, said in May that he want­ed to repair his fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships despite past emo­tion­al ten­sions.

“Of course some mem­bers of my fam­i­ly will nev­er for­give me for writ­ing a book. Of course they will nev­er for­give me for lots of things. But you know … I would love rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with my fam­i­ly … There’s no point in con­tin­u­ing to fight any­more. And life is pre­cious,” Har­ry told the BBC.

“I don’t know how much longer my father has. He won’t speak to me because of this secu­ri­ty stuff, but it would be nice to rec­on­cile.”

Con­tribut­ing: Michael Hold­en and William James, Reuters; Han­nah Yasharoff, USA TODAY