On September 10, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle joined Prince William and Kate Middleton for a walk outside Windsor Castle to take in the floral tributes left on the grounds in honor of Queen Elizabeth. According to People, the Prince and Princess of Wales invited the Sussexes to join their walk and the group appearance was a surprise to everyone-including palace security.
Prince Harry shared some tender words about his late grandmother with visitors. "It's a lonely place up there now without her," Harry said in a new video shared by The Sun. "Whichever room she was in, you felt her presence throughout."
Another video showed the Duchess of Sussex sharing a warm embrace with a teen girl, who later spoke with CNN about the sweet moment. "We were just waiting for her to come, and she just came near me and asked my name, and how my day was, how long I was waiting," she explained. "I asked if she could have a hug, and she hugged me back. It was just quite an amazing moment. I'm still shaking now."
She continued, "It was quite nice to see William and Kate and Meghan and Harry together. I just wanted to show her that she's welcome here and wanted to hug her after everything that's happened."
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This marks the first joint appearance between the royals previously known as the Fab Four since March 2020. Following Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's move to California-and subsequent bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey-it became clear that the royal family rift was about a lot more than physical distance.
Not only did the couples keep their distance during the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June, but Will and Kate reportedly planned to "avoid" Meghan and Harry during their scheduled trip to the UK in early September, prior to the Queen's passing.
"It's such an extraordinary historical moment and also a deeply personal one for the family that you'd hope and think that all members of the family would unite and support [the King] especially," a source told People. "And perhaps some of those wounds can be healed in the process."