Five years ago, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry broke the royal mold.
On Jan. 8, 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made the bombshell announcement that they planned to step back as senior working royals, writing on Instagram, “After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution.”
“We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty the Queen,” the statement continued. “It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment.”
Originally, the couple — who were new parents to 8-month-old son Prince Archie at the time — intended to split their time between the U.K. and North America and sought to continue “to honor our duty to The Queen, the Commonwealth and our patronages,” the statement said. “This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity.”
The statement concluded that Harry, now 40, and Meghan, now 43, wished to “continue to collaborate with Her Majesty The Queen, The Prince of Wales [King Charles], The Duke of Cambridge [Prince William] and all relevant parties. Until then, please accept our deepest thanks for your continued support.”
Though the announcement ultimately came on Jan. 8, the first hint of the couple leaving their working royal roles happened three months prior in October 2019, when they announced their intention to take six weeks off to spend “family time” together, ultimately doing so in Vancouver Island, Canada, where they celebrated Christmas privately — and not at Sandringham with the rest of the royal family, as was tradition. In fact, Harry and Meghan visited Canada House in London to thank them for their hospitality during their Vancouver Island stay on Jan. 7, just one day before their bombshell announcement.
Five days after the news broke, on Jan. 13 Harry, Charles and William met with the Queen at Sandringham — where she remained following the Christmas holiday — in what has now become known as the “Sandringham Summit.” After the 90-minute discussion, the Queen released an uncharacteristically emotional statement, saying in part, “Today my family had very constructive discussions on the future of my grandson and his family.”
“My family and I are entirely supportive of Harry and Meghan’s desire to create a new life as a young family,” the monarch continued. “Although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working Members of the Royal Family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family.”
Harry and Meghan’s exit from royal life officially began on March 31, 2020, following a number of engagements that month as the couple wrapped up work with many royal patronages — and made headlines with appearances at London’s Endeavour Fund Awards on March 5, the Mountbatten Festival of Music at the Royal Albert Hall on March 7 and a tense reunion with members of the royal family at the Commonwealth Day service on March 8.
The Queen acknowledged in her Jan. 13, 2020 statement that there would be a “period of transition” as Harry and Meghan figured out their new roles, and it was later announced that there would be a one year probational period, after which the agreement would be revisited. That happened on Feb. 18, 2021, when Buckingham Palace announced that “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have confirmed to Her Majesty The Queen that they will not be returning as working members of The Royal Family.” By then, Harry, Meghan and Archie had settled in the United States — specifically Meghan’s home state of California — and had purchased a reported $14 million home in Montecito in July 2020.
“They were craving a smaller community and a slower pace — Montecito is very mellow, a charming little town, and the Santa Barbara [area] offers an ideal lifestyle that they’re looking forward to,” a source close to Harry and Meghan told PEOPLE at the time.
In making the step back permanent, Harry lost his honorary military appointments, which were subsequently redistributed “among working members of The Royal Family,” and the Buckingham Palace statement concluded with the verbiage “While all are saddened by their decision, The Duke and Duchess remain much loved members of the family.”
The statement from the palace also added, “Following conversations with The Duke, The Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the work of The Royal Family it is not possible to continue with the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service,” to which Harry and Meghan pushed back with a statement of their own, saying, “We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.”
The couple’s office also added that they “remain committed to their duty and service to the U.K. and around the world, and have offered their continued support to the organizations they have represented regardless of official role.”
“This is what Meghan and Harry have always wanted — to create their own life,” a source told PEOPLE in March 2020. “It’s got to feel like an immense relief to get out of the U.K. and go down their own path.”
On March 7, 2021 — less than three weeks after the Feb. 18 confirmation that Harry and Meghan would not be returning to working royal life — the couple began speaking out about their step back publicly, first in a television special with Oprah Winfrey and later in their 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, Harry’s 2023 memoir Spare and subsequent interviews. Here’s what the couple has said about their decision, made an eventful five years ago.
2021: In conversation with Oprah
While speaking to Winfrey, Meghan spoke about being silenced by the royal family, explaining she was directed to say “no comment” on questions asked of her once her relationship with Harry became public in 2016.
“That’s my friends, my mom and dad. We did it, I did anything they told me to do,” she said as she recalled thinking that she would be “protected” by the royal family.
“That was really hard to reconcile, because it was only once we were married and everything started to really worsen that I came to understand that not only was I not being protected, but that they were willing to lie to protect other members of the family,” Meghan said. “They weren’t willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.”
At the end of the interview, Meghan elaborated further, saying her biggest regret from her experience in the royal family was thinking she’d be protected from the harsh negativity she faced: “I regret believing that, because I think had I really seen that that wasn’t happening, I would have been able to do more, but I think I wasn’t supposed to see it,” she said. “I wasn’t supposed to know, and now because we’re actually on the other side, we’ve actually not just survived but are thriving.”
For his part, Harry said it was never his and Meghan’s intention to fully leave their roles as working royals, and told Winfrey, “No, I never blindsided my grandmother. I have too much respect for her.”
Harry continued that he had three conversations about the subject with Queen Elizabeth and two conversations with the former Prince Charles “before he stopped taking my calls.”
Meghan added that it was the couple’s plan to remain working members of the royal family “forever”: “I wrote letters to his family when I got there saying, ‘I am dedicated to this, I’m here for you, use me as you’d like,’ ” Meghan said, adding that she taught herself much about England and how to behave as a royal in public because “I just wanted to make them proud.”
Harry also said the royal family officially cut him off in the first quarter of 2020, and that before eventually inking deals with Netflix and Spotify, the pair were living off the inheritance his mother, Princess Diana, had left him.
“Without that, we wouldn’t have been able to do this,” he said, likely referring to the family’s move to Montecito.
“All I wanted was enough money to get security and keep my family safe,” Harry added, also acknowledging that he felt “trapped” inside the confines of the institution.
“I didn’t see a way out,” Harry said of royal life. “I was trapped, but I didn’t know I was trapped. Trapped within the system like the rest of the family. My father and my brother are trapped. They don’t get to leave and I have huge compassion for that.”
2022: In Netflix’s Harry & Meghan docuseries
In the six-part Harry & Meghan docuseries — which premiered in two installments in December 2022 — Meghan said she tried her best to blend in during the early days of her working royal life, choosing to wear neutral colors to avoid standing out.
“Most of the time that I was in the U.K., I rarely wore color,” she said. “There was thought in that.”
“To my understanding, you could never wear the same color as Her Majesty if there’s a group event, but then you also shouldn’t be wearing the same color as one of the other more senior members of the family,” Meghan added, alluding to Kate Middleton and Queen Camilla.
“So I was like, ‘Well, what’s a color that they’ll probably never wear?’ Camel, beige, white,” Meghan continued as photos flashed of her in a tan wrap coat during her first Christmas at Sandringham in 2017. “So I wore a lot of muted tones, but it was also so I could just blend in. I’m not trying to stand out here. There was no version of me joining this family and me not doing everything I could to fit in. I don’t want to embarrass the family.”
This decision was upended in the final three engagements of the couple’s working royal life in March 2020, when Meghan wore vibrant hues of blue, red and green as she and Harry prepared to step away from their roles.
“I wore a lot of color that week,” she said in the docuseries. “I thought, ‘Well, let’s just look like a rainbow.’ ”
“It was our opportunity to go out with a bang, to be honest,” Harry added.
On the show, Harry opened up about their Vancouver Island, Canada holiday break in 2019, during which time they discussed relocating to Canada with then-Prince Charles while continuing their royal duties. Charles asked Harry to put the plan in writing, which Harry said he did in a series of emails, adding that they would give up their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles if they had to — “and five days later, it was on the front page of the newspaper,” Meghan said.
Harry added, “It became clear that the institution leaked the fact that we were going to move back to Canada, and the key piece of that story that made me aware that the contents of the letter between me and my father had been leaked was that we were willing to relinquish our Sussex titles. That was the giveaway.”
The plan for Harry, Meghan and Archie to move to Canada was then “scrapped,” Harry said, “because it’s now become a public debate.”
He further opened up about about the aforementioned Jan. 13, 2020 Sandringham Summit, when he said he had a “terrifying” confrontation with his older brother William and father Charles: “It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that simply weren’t true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in,” he said.
He added, “I went in with the same proposal that we’d already made publicly. But once I got there, I was given five options: one being all in no change, five being all out. I chose option three in the meeting: half in, half out; have our own jobs but also work in support of the Queen.” But the family wasn’t willing to compromise, Harry continued: “It became very clear very quickly that that goal was not up for discussion or debate,” he said.
In the series, Harry said that the family appeared to wait until Meghan returned to Canada to hold the meeting. “It was only once Meg had left and gone back to Canada that it was then arranged that there was going to be a meeting at Sandringham on the following Monday,” he said.
Meghan added, “Imagine a conversation, a roundtable discussion about the future of your life. When the stakes are this high. And you as the mom and the wife and the target, in many regards, aren’t invited to have a seat at the table.”
Of those final royal engagements with Meghan in March 2020 — particularly the March 8 Commonwealth Day service — Harry said they were “cold” and “distant.”
“We were nervous seeing the family because all the TV cameras and everybody watching at home and everybody watching in the audience. It’s like living through a soap opera where everybody else views you as entertainment,” Harry said.
“I felt really distant from the rest of my family, which was interesting because so much of how they operate is about what it looks like, rather than what it feels like,” he continued. “And it looked cold. But it also felt cold.”
That tension was still very much apparent when Harry attended his grandfather Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021, just one month after their Oprah sitdown.
“I’ve had to make peace with the fact that we’re probably never going to get genuine accountability of a genuine apology [from my family],” Harry said in the Netflix series. “My wife and I, we’re moving on. We’re focused on what’s coming next.”
2023: Promoting Harry’s memoir, Spare
As he prepared to release his tell-all, Spare, in January 2023 — less than one month after the Netflix docuseries premiered — Harry told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes that he would never return as a full-time working royal, shaking his head and simply saying “No.”
Just a few days later, Harry spoke to ITV’s Tom Bradby about whether or not he planned to attend King Charles’ coronation in May 2023, four months from the time they were speaking.
“There’s a lot that can happen between now and then,” Harry said. “But the door is always open. The ball is in their court. There’s a lot to be discussed and I really hope that they’re willing to sit down and talk about it.”
Harry ultimately did attend the event, though without Meghan. “It is such a momentous occasion for Charles, and he would want his son to be at the coronation to witness it,” a source said at the time. “He would like to have Harry back in the family. If they don’t sort it out, it will always be part of the King’s reign and how he has left his family disjointed. He has had a reputation as a distant parent, and it would be awful for him for that to continue.”
As Spare was due to hit shelves, Harry told Bradby that he never intended to hurt his family by sharing some of the most difficult moments he’d experienced as a royal: “I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family. I always do,” he said. “Nothing of what I’ve done in this book or otherwise has ever been with any intention to harm them or hurt them.”
“The truth is something that I need to rely on,” he continued. “And after many, many years of lies being told about me and my family, there comes a point where, you know, again, going back to the relationship between certain members of the family and the tabloid press, those certain members have decided to get into bed with the devil, right? To rehabilitate their image. If you need to do that, or you want to do that you choose to do that — well, that is a choice. That’s up to you. But the moment that that rehabilitation comes at the detriment of others, me, other members of my family, then that’s where I draw the line.”
Of reconciling with his family, Harry said, “I wish that it would stop. I want reconciliation. But first, there needs to be some accountability. You can’t just continue to say to me that I’m delusional and paranoid when all the evidence is stacked up.”
When asked by Bradby how he justifies sharing family secrets, Harry replied, “Well, there’s been a motto, a family motto, of never complain, never explain. And what people have realized now through the Netflix documentary and numerous stories coming out over the years is that that was just a motto. There was a lot of complaining and there was a lot of explaining.”
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“We’re six years into it now, and I have spent every single year of those six doing everything I can privately to get through to my family. And the thing that is the saddest about this, Tom, is it never needed to be this way. It never needed to get to this point,” Harry added. “I’ve had conversations, I’ve written letters, I’ve written emails, and everything is just, ‘No, you, this is not what’s happening. You are imagining it.’ And that’s really hard to take.”
“And if it had stopped by the point that I fled my home country with my wife and my son fearing for our lives, then maybe this would’ve turned out differently,” he said.
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