Now that Donald Trump has cemented his second term as US president following Tuesday night’s election, eyes are now on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and their place in the US.
In recent years, since the Sussexes moved to Montecito, California after they stepped down as senior members of the royal family in 2020, the newly-elected president has commented on Prince Harry’s US visa application. His comments intensified after the royal admitted in his 2023 memoir Spare to having taken cocaine, smoking marijuana, and experimenting with magic mushrooms in his youth.
Under US visa laws, Prince Harry's admission could have made him ineligible to enter the country. However, the BBC reports that immigration officers have discretion 'to make a final decision based on a number of factors'.
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Earlier this year, Trump claimed at a political conference that sitting president Joe Biden administration’s had been ‘too gracious’ to the royal since his permanent move to the US.
‘I wouldn’t protect him. He betrayed the Queen. That’s unforgivable. He would be on his own if it was down to me,’ Trump told the Daily Express US.
Speaking to Nigel Farage in March, the former US president said he would not give Harry any preferential treatment if he was to be re-elected to the White House.
This year, a judge ruled that Harry’s visa application should remain private as ‘the public does not have a strong interest in disclosure of the duke’s immigration records’. 'Like any foreign national, the duke has a legitimate privacy interest in his immigration status,' he added.
Last week, one of Trump’s sons, Eric, claimed the only reason Harry’s US Visa is safe at present is because ‘no one cares’ about him.
‘Truthfully I don’t give a damn about Prince Harry and I don’t think this country does either,’ he told the Daily Mail, commenting that he believed Harry had ‘gone off the deep end and it’s sad to watch’.
However, the son of the new president said he doesn’t think his visa should be revoked, adding: ‘I don’t give a damn if he did drugs. It means nothing.’
Trump's negative view of the Sussexes isn’t surprising given the trio's comments about each other in recent years.
Before he became US president in 2016, the Duchess of Sussex described Trump as being ‘divisive’ and ‘misogynistic’.
Discouraging the US electorate to vote for him at the election, she told The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore: ‘You don’t really want that kind of world.’
Three years later, Trump told Piers Morgan that he ‘didn’t know she was nasty’ about him, and said that she was ‘very nice’.
Fast forward to 2020 and Trump claimed on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the Sussexes ‘must pay’ for their security costs, before admitting that he was ‘not a fan’ of the former Suits actor after she urged Americans to vote for Biden in that year’s presidential race.
In 2022, Trump told Morgan ‘Harry is whipped like no person I think I’ve ever seen’ and that his wife will likely leave him ‘when she decides that she likes some other guy better’.
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Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
