TENSIONS have been running high within the royal family since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped back as senior royals.

However, a PR expert has claimed that it’s not Prince Harry that some people have a problem with.

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Experts claim Meghan Markle was hugely popular when she married Prince Harry in 2018 – but said some people’s opinion has shiftedCredit: Reuters

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back as senior royals in 2020Credit: Getty

Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show, Mark Borkowski claimed “people still love Harry, they still like him.

“That’s a problem.

“Their problem is they don’t like the woman he loves.”

News.com.au’s royal reporter Bronte Coy agreed, saying: “He was Britain’s favourite son, their cheeky son, and so popular.

“It’s only been a few years since he left, though it feels like a lot longer.

“But I think people still hold great affection for him, even though they never really knew her [Meghan].

“They didn’t even know her as a royal really, as it was such a short period.”

Mark argued that there was a huge “outpouring of love for her” initially as “people felt he [Harry] had found someone fairly late in life, at least in terms of royal standards where they sort of get married off early.”

Bronte agreed saying Meghan was given a “rock star welcome” during her first royal tour to Australia in 2018.

She added: “You cannot imagine a more rock star welcome for anyone short of the Queen, the late Queen.

“The outpouring of love, the crowds that were there, and of and of all ages.

“She was very loved in that period.”

IMAGE SHIFT

However, Mark claimed that Meghan was so used to Hollywood life that she was at odds with royal life.

The PR expert added: “Of course, when you come from Hollywood and the star system, when you’re used to being on the red carpet for X, Y, and Z, making sure you’ve got your table in restaurants and that you’re seen around, they weren’t the premier act.

“Actually, in some ways, being the spare turned out to be an advantage for him.

“While his ‘Spare’ narrative portrayed him as saying ‘poor me, I was the spare, I was bullied by my brother’ and all that nonsense, being the spare was a huge advantage.”

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Mark argued that there was a huge ‘outpouring of love’ for Meghan initiallyCredit: AP

ROYAL SNUB

After tying the knot in 2018, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced in 2020 they would be stepping down as senior working royals and would be relocating across the pond.

Prince Harry has since criticised his family in his bombshell Oprah Winfrey chat in 2021, where he opened up about feeling trapped within the institution.

He also claimed he and Meghan weren’t given the support they needed within the royal family.

The Duke of Sussex also ruffled feathers releasing his tell-all memoir Spare and doing his Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, which also revealed information about his family.

Harry’s family attacks since stepping down could have affected how the public see him.

PUBLIC OPINION

In two new YouGov polls commissioned by The Times on either side of the Atlantic, it was discovered that just 26 per cent of the British public have a positive view of Prince Harry, compared to 62 per cent having a negative view.

However, the study found Prince Harry is far more popular Stateside than in the UK.

Over in the States, 49 per cent of US citizens had a positive view of Harry, 24 per cent reported a negative view.

Prince William was the most popular royal on both sides of the pond, with a 75 per cent positive rate in the UK and 54 per cent in the US.

Meanwhile, Princess Kate had a 74 per cent positive view in the UK, compared to 43 per cent in the US.

A timeline of Prince Harry’s family feud

IN 2018, the Sun told how “simmering tension

The first hints of friction reportedly came after William was introduced to Meghan when she was staying at Kensington Palace.

Once she’d returned home to Canada, William and Harry sat down for a brother-to-brother chat.

He knew Harry was already head-over-heels for her but it has been claimed he advised him to take it slowly.

The younger prince reportedly didn’t take too kindly to the advice, with one royal source saying he “went mental”.

Then in June 2019 Harry and Meghan officially split off from the charity they shared with William and Kate.

The Royal Foundation will be divided between the Sussexes and Cambridges as the couples focus on their own separate charitable endeavours.

Prince William and Prince Harry first established the Royal Foundation in 2009 before Kate joined two years later shortly after their engagement was announced.

The trio would often appear together at events and the Foundation had huge successes with projects like the Invictus Games for injured veterans and the mental health Heads Together campaign.

The Royal Foundation said the decision was made following the conclusion of a review into its structure – but added both couples will continue to work together in the future.

Harry and Meg were living in close proximity to Kate and Wills within the Kensington Palace estate, but they switched to Frogmore Cottage in Windsor before baby Archie was born.

The move further increased rumours of a fallout.

Harry also hinted in his ITV documentary “Harry and Meghan, An African Journey” that he and his brother had grown apart.

In 2021, Harry and Meghan give their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey where Harry accused his dad of cutting him off financially.

Harry then jetted back to UK to join William in unveiling a statue to their mother Princess Diana in the grounds of Kensington Palace. But sources claimed William didn’t want to attend the memorial amid their ongoing rift.

In 2022, just before their grandmother the Queen died, sources claimed Kate acts as a “peacemaker” between the brothers.

Harry claimed his brother “knocked him to the floor” during an argument about Meghan, in his memoir.

In Spare, Harry said William branded Meghan “rude” and “difficult” during a row.

Harry alleged William “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and … knocked me to the floor”.

He said he was left with a visible injury to his back following the argument in 2019 at Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace, where he was living at the time.

In January this year, Harry flew in to be with Charles after the monarch’s shock cancer diagnosis.

Harry flew back to the US the following day – without seeing Wills.

In May he visited the UK for a three-day visit without seeing King Charles or Prince William.