Meghan Markle Ordered Prince Harry To Attend King Charles' Coronation, Piers Morgan Claims

Prince Harry will attend his father King Charles III's coronation despite the ongoing conflict between him and the royal family. But a royal expert believed he was only coerced by his wife, Meghan Markle, to do so.

During an episode of TalkTV's "Piers Morgan Uncensored" last week, host Piers Morgan spoke to historian Tessa Dunlop and King Charles' former butler Grant Harrold about the dwindling popularity of Great Britain's royal family and how it would affect the 74-year-old monarch's reign in the future.

The 58-year-old English broadcaster called out the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for "trashing" the royal family following their highly publicized content that revealed the ups and downs of living in the royal limelight such as Prince Harry's "Spare" memoir, the pair's Netflix docuseries "Harry & Meghan" and their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021.

When Dunlop, however, mentioned that she was quite disappointed that Markle won't be attending Saturday's coronation, Morgan had a different opinion on the matter and admitted that he was more disappointed in the 38-year-old Duke of Sussex.

"I am very disappointed Harry is going to be there. I'm very disappointed in [King] Charles — although I completely understand, as a father, why he's felt the need to do this, he doesn't want to be seen as the bad guy in the whole thing — but what the hell is Prince Harry doing?" Morgan said.

He continued, "Having trashed the family in that horrible book he wrote, the terrible series they've done, the interviews they've done. Trashing, trashing, trashing. Damaging the institution of the monarchy, damaging the royal family, and then he has the brass neck to turn up at the coronation."

The broadcaster, later on, explained the reason why he believed the duke opted to attend the coronation, saying, "I suspect Meghan Markle has gone, 'You better get over there, [and] get on that balcony somehow because our entire world depends on you still being a dominant member of the royal family.'"

However, Dunlop appeared to disagree with Morgan's claims. She emphasized that in reality, King Charles is "the richest royal ever seen by world kind" with 1.8 billion pounds ($2.2 billion), which gives him the privilege to pay inheritance tax, and that she felt sympathy for Prince Harry for being "bumped out of the equation."

Morgan's claims came after he revealed a YouGov poll suggested the majority of citizens across the U.K. care less about King Charles' coronation. It showed that 35% didn't care very much, 29% didn't care at all, 24% had a fair amount of care, while positive feedback only fell at 9%

The former journalist blamed Prince Harry, Markle and their accusations against the royal family, including one where they claimed that the royals were being racist toward their 3-year-old son Archie.

But Dunlop believed that the citizens were going through a "ceremonial fatigue" because of the late Queen Elizabeth II's 73-year-long reign and that the "press" was to blame for creating a narrative that deepened the conflict within the royal family.

"We've maybe got royal ceremonial fatigue. The Queen lived a very long time, so we had a golden jubilee, a diamond jubilee, and a platinum jubilee. We had a thumper of a funeral, and now the heirs have come out of the machine," the 49-year-old BBC historian said.

She continued, "I'm going to give people like you, Piers, people in the press, some of the blame. Peddling this divisive narrative, making the scars in the royal family deeper than they needed to be."

Morgan had several run-ins with the royal family, most notably Prince Harry. He was recently accused of illegally gathering information about the late Princess Diana via phone hacking when he was the editor for the News of the World in the '90s.

Though he has yet to respond to the accusations, he previously denied knowing about phone hacking within the system, telling the Guardian in 2022, "I've never hacked a phone nor told anyone to hack a phone."