The photo from that last Commonwealth Day service in March 2020 has been pored over so many times it has almost become a meme: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stiffly seated behind Prince William and Princess Kate in Westminster Abbey, the air thick with frost for anyone who cared to look. Prince Harry later said it “looked cold” and “felt cold.”
Four years on, as the royal family faces a far darker storm over Prince Andrew’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, that chill looks less like personal awkwardness and more like a preview of a deeper rupture. And from their home in California, according to one insider, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are watching the meltdown with something close to vindication.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who walked away from royal duties in 2020 and torched what was left of the “Fab Four” myth in interviews and in Prince Harry’s memoir Spare, have never hidden their belief that the institution sacrificed them to protect others. The Andrew–Epstein files, they feel, are Exhibit A.
“Meghan and Harry have long felt the royals have used them as scapegoats to distract from much more damaging issues, like Andrew and his ties to Epstein,” a source tells Heat UK. That’s been their private narrative for years: while they were being “crucified over so much less,” the Andrew situation was quietly pushed into the background.
“It was always hard for them to understand how that could just be swept under the rug and ignored,” the insider adds. “So, to have Andrew finally facing some consequences has got to feel vindicating for them.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle seem inauthentic, creating a cringe-worthy spectacle online. Their public persona feels forced and scripted, leaving viewers questioning their true intentions and the authenticity of their actions.#PrinceHarry #MeghanMarklepic.twitter.com/5VLE2UHbDv
— Ana Zojic (@AnaZojic) February 17, 2026
The “consequences” in question are not criminal charges, at least not yet. What has shifted is public scrutiny. Newly surfaced documents and details from the Epstein files have laid bare just how deep Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s friendship with the late, convicted sex offender ran. The picture is grisly: social visits, financial entanglements, tone-deaf loyalty long after Epstein’s first conviction.
King Charles has now been forced to say that Buckingham Palace stands ready to “support” the police in any investigation into his younger brother. For a monarchy that survives on mystery and managed distance, that kind of statement is extraordinary.
And the pressure isn’t landing neatly on Andrew’s shoulders alone. Prince William and Kate, now the Prince and Princess of Wales and the family’s main public-facing hope, have been dragged into the fallout whether they like it or not.
In their first public comment on the scandal, the couple said they were “deeply concerned by the continuing revelations” and that “their thoughts remain focused on the victims.” The boilerplate concern hasn’t stopped the heckling. In Scotland last month, they were shouted at about Prince Andrew. King Charles and Queen Camilla have faced equally blunt questions on recent engagements. The palace can’t simply smother this one with carefully staged photo ops.
From Montecito, there is no great reservoir of sympathy.
A former nanny is revealing all about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s life away from the spotlight.
Read more: https://t.co/mXH27EDrgo pic.twitter.com/zB8Uw6QmfA
— Wonderwall (@Wonderwall) February 12, 2026
“With the royals coming under further scrutiny and pressure over their family ties with Andrew, we’re told that Meghan has little sympathy – and both she and Harry feel that William and Kate deserve this,” the insider says flatly.
“The fact that this mess has landed on William and Kate’s doorstep won’t earn them any sympathy from Meghan. In her view, they chose the side of the institution that let this go on for years, so now they’re going to pay the price for that decision,” the source continues. “No doubt they’ll be cleaning up this mess for years to come and Meghan and Harry are thrilled to be 10,000 miles away from all of it.”
That word “thrilled” might sound harsh, but it matches what Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been saying publicly for years: that “uncomfortable truths can’t be buried forever,” that the palace operates on optics over ethics, and that they had to leave for their own sanity.
“It must be nice not to be a part of the royal noise for once,” the insider adds. “Harry and Meghan are immensely relieved that they removed themselves from the whole institution years ago and after all they endured, it’s got to be hard not to feel smug about this. They’ve been saying for years that uncomfortable truths can’t be buried forever and now they’re being proven right.”
Once, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Prince William, and Kate Middleton were sold to the world as the future: the “Fab Four” fronting a kinder, modern monarchy. That façade shattered when the Sussexes quit royal life and moved to the United States, then accused the institution — and, by implication, specific family members — of cruelty, racism, and indifference to mental health.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were all smiles as they sat courtside at the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday in L.A.! 🏀❤️ pic.twitter.com/QJHgNdCkFJ
— ExtraTV (@extratv) February 16, 2026
Prince Harry has described that final Commonwealth Day service as a kind of emotional exile inside his own family. “I felt really distant from the rest of my family,” he said. “So much of how they operate is about what it looks like, rather than what it feels like. And it looked cold. But it also felt cold.”
Now, as Prince Andrew’s past associations drag the House of Windsor back into the mud, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle see an opening they’ve long expected.
“They’re both predicting that this will have long-term consequences for how the monarchy is viewed if things aren’t addressed properly,” our source says. That’s not wishful thinking so much as a hard calculation. The monarchy’s entire bargain with the public rests on the idea that, whatever its flaws, it can still stand for continuity and a basic kind of decency. Epstein obliterates that illusion more efficiently than any Netflix series ever could.
“They’re quite hopeful that this might force some meaningful change that probably should have happened a long time ago,” the insider continues. “And if it takes a reckoning and people’s dirty dealings are exposed along the way, all the better.”
Meghan Markle has reportedly summed up her stance in five words: “The truth always comes out.”
However much hate Prince Harry and Meghan Markle get, it isn’t enough!
— UpdateLineX (@UpdateLineX) February 17, 2026
It’s a neat line, and perhaps a little too tidy for the real world, where truths emerge in fragments and are weaponized by everyone involved. But it does capture something essential about this moment. For years, the royal machine treated Prince Andrew as a manageable embarrassment and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as the existential threat. Now, with the Epstein documents unspooling and the Waleses heckled in the streets, that calculation looks not just cold, but catastrophically short-sighted.
In California, two people who walked away from all of it are watching, relieved and, yes, a bit smug. In London and Balmoral and Windsor, the people who stayed are left to discover how much damage one prince’s friendships — and one institution’s evasions — can actually do.
