How King Charles III Really Felt About Prince Harry Attending His Coronation

Prince Harry supported father King Charles III at his coronation this past weekend, and while photos didn’t show the royals interacting at all during the ceremony, a source close to the monarch claimed Charles was “delighted” to see his youngest son there.

“I am delighted that Prince Harry was there,” Colleen Harris, a former press secretary to the king and his sons, said in People’s most recent cover story. “He would have personally regretted it if he wasn’t there to support his father. Speaking as a mother, [I believe] it was the right thing … and the King [was] delighted.”

The Duke of Sussex kept a low profile while entering Westminster Abbey Saturday solo. And for the ceremony, he was sat in the third row with cousins Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice, while brother Prince William and his family sat in the first row. The siblings did not speak at the event, and BAZAAR.com confirmed Harry left for the airport soon after the coronation ended, therefore missing the rest of the celebrations over the weekend.

The Duke returned to California to celebrate son Prince Archie’s fourth birthday—which fell on the same day as the coronation—alongside wife Duchess Meghan and daughter Princess Lilibet.

The coronation marked the first time Harry publicly reunited with his royal family since Queen Elizabeth II’s death in September 2022. It also came after Harry exposed major family secrets—many involving King Charles, Prince William, and Princess Kate—in his tell-all memoir, Spare. Among many things, Harry in the book voiced his heartbreak over how the royal houses pinned him and William against each other; and in an interview after the memoir’s release, he said their mother, the late Princess Diana, would be sad to see where their relationship stands today.