Meghan’s pseudo-royal visits will be few and far between

Victoria WardWed, October 14, 2026 at 12:22 PM UTC

0

The Sussexes are returning to Nottingham this week, where they carried out their first public engagement in 2017 - AFP/Oli Scarff

The Duchess of Sussex is expected to make a high-profile return to public duties alongside Prince Harry this week.

But sources close to them insisted that their visit to Nottingham on Thursday would not act as any kind of curtain-raiser for their new lives in Britain.

Instead, the Duchess would largely shun such appearances in favour of motherhood, her lifestyle business and efforts to reboot her acting career, The Telegraph can reveal.

Their visit to Nottingham is set to be their first joint public engagement since returning to the UK after a four-year hiatus.

While requests for more visits have continued to arrive, it is understood the Duchess was not looking to take on any causes and royal-style public engagements were no longer a primary focus.

“They have different professional priorities,” one source said of the Duke and Duchess.

“Prince Harry’s is his philanthropic work and public service. Her focus is on her family and children, followed by her business, followed by rebooting her acting career.

“Her public appearances will be relatively rare. She is reading a lot of scripts at the moment. If she has time left after all of that, she will do some charity work.

“But she’s not a working royal, her day isn’t organised around a programme pulled together by a private secretary. She’s a full-time mum and entrepreneur, and that alone takes up a lot of time and work.”

The Duchess is hoping to launch As Ever, her lifestyle brand, in the UK by the end of this year. Known for jam and edible sprinkles, its products have only been available in the US but expansion plans are under way.

The Duchess’s Instagram post promoting As Ever as she plans to expand her business to the UK - Instagram

The significance of the location of their first public engagement since returning to Britain is not lost on Team Sussex, nor the couple.

Their three planned engagements in Nottingham have been widely compared with their first official outing in the same city in December 2017, when hundreds of flag-waving fans chanted her name.

Team Sussex said there was a “really nice synergy” in their return to the city for their first engagement since coming back to Britain.

While the “stars aligned” on this occasion, they reiterated that such appearances would not become the norm.

“These joint charitable engagements will not be a regular part of their work,” the source said. “Don’t expect to see them doing this kind of thing together very often. A handful of times a year perhaps.”

The Sussexes’ final official engagements as full-time royals were in March 2020. Their last joint appearance in the UK was at Elizabeth II’s funeral in September 2022.

The Sussexes with the Prince and Princess of Wales in September 2022 - PA/Kirsty O'Connor

The Duchess’s reintroduction into public life in the UK has been a subject of much discussion.

She had been expected to accompany the Duke on two engagements related to the Invictus Games in July but pulled out at the 11th hour over security concerns.

There was also talk of her joining him for the Invictus Spirit Awards in London last month, but the Duke of Sussex attended alone.

The Duke of Sussex attended an Invictus Spirit awards evening in September after speculation that the Duchess would join him - Invictus Games Foundation/David Levene

Unlike their first royal walkabout in Nottingham in 2017, this week’s visit would not be undertaken on behalf of the King as it is not an official royal engagement.

Many would describe the appearance as a “quasi-royal” visit, an example of Harry and Meghan trying to carve out the “half-in, half-out” model that Elizabeth II had firmly banned.

For Team Sussex, it was simply proof that the couple can continue to champion the causes they feel passionate about.

There would be no organised walkabout, although if members of the public gathered, they would have no qualms about popping over to say hello and pose for selfies.

Advertisement

“It obviously won’t be on the same scale as 2017,” one source said. “We can’t close down roads and put up barricades for walkabouts and don’t have the pull and the clout with the police even if we wanted to.

“Rather than walking around pressing the flesh, it’s about putting focus on the room they are in and the causes they want to promote.

“There will be less handshaking – they don’t have that same responsibility to do that kind of thing anymore.”

So what’s on the agenda?

The Sussexes have developed close personal relationships with all three of the grassroots organisations they will visit in Nottingham.

Their first stop will be the Community Recording Studio (CRS), a youth charity based in the St Ann’s area of the city, where the Duke deftly swerved an attempt last year to get him into a recording booth.

This time, he will meet Jah Digga, a musician, poet and youth mentor, who received support from the CRS as a child.

The Duchess will join young girls for a confidence-building and bracelet-making workshop, combining creative activity with discussions about self-belief, resilience and handling rejection.

They will then visit Himmah, a community kitchen tackling poverty, racism and social exclusion.

The Duchess will be reunited with women affected by the Grenfell Tower fire with whom she worked on the Hubb Community Kitchen cookbook. The couple will also visit the Himmah foodbank and help distribute packages.

“Food is something the Duchess is passionate about,” a source said. “It’s World Poverty Day on Friday so it’s a good opportunity to highlight its community outreach work.”

Lastly, the couple will visit the youth charity Epic Partners, where they will meet young people and their coaches.

Prince Harry first visited the CRS in 2013 and has since returned on several occasions both privately and on official engagements, most recently last September.

He made a personal donation of £1.1m via Children in Need, which was largely ring-fenced for the CRS to help young people affected by violence and knife crime in the area.

“I’ll continue to stand with you,” he said at the time. “Nottingham has my respect, it always has, my commitment, and a permanent place in my heart.”

Nottingham taught Harry ‘important lessons’

The Duke said the Midlands city had taught him “important lessons” and had “truly” inspired him.

Determined to maintain his links with Nottingham, he has received monthly updates from his team about the organisations with which he has developed a close rapport.

A source said: “He fell in love with the city on that first CRS project. The kind of youth outreach work undertaken by both the CRS and Epic Partners does not receive enough care and attention and gets slightly forgotten about.

“These are real grassroots organisations where every penny counts. Both Harry and Meghan have donated independently and together as a couple, [and] invest a lot of effort in helping to bring about real change.”

In the old days, when they were working royals, such a visit would be called an “away day” by palace aides.

But the nine years that have passed since that first visit have been seismic: a decision to quit royal duties and move to the US in search of independence, followed by a stream of controversial revelations about life in the Royal family.

More recently, there has been a public spat with Buckingham Palace over their status as “private citizens”, not to mention the ongoing fight for police protection.

Whether or not the public notices much of a difference this time remains to be seen.

Team Sussex will undoubtedly receive a warm welcome from their three chosen charities.

The bigger question for the Duke and Duchess in the longer term is whether the public will receive them as warmly as in 2017.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”