LONDON (Reuters) -Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have been asked to vacate Frogmore Cottage, the house within the grounds of King Charles’s Windsor Castle estate they use when in Britain, a spokesperson for the couple said on Wednesday.
Earlier, the Sun newspaper reported the house had been offered by the monarch to his brother, Prince Andrew.
Charles’s decision comes in the wake of the couple’s damning revelations about Harry’s father, his elder brother Prince William and other royals in his recent memoir, a Netflix documentary and a series of TV interviews, the tabloid said.
“We can confirm The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been requested to vacate their residence at Frogmore Cottage,” a spokesperson for Harry and Meghan said.
Prince Andrew, the king’s younger brother, was forced to quit his royal role over his relationship with convicted U.S sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The paper reported that Andrew wants to stay in his current home nearby rather than move to Frogmore Cottage.
Buckingham Palace said it would not comment on the report. A royal source said any such discussions would be a private family matter.
Harry and Meghan moved to Frogmore Cottage within the grounds of the Windsor Castle estate to the west of London following their marriage in 2018.
After stepping down from their royal duties in 2020, they moved to California to forge new lives and careers, but Frogmore Cottage remained their British base. They also agreed to pay back the 2.4 million pounds ($2.9 million) of taxpayers’ money that was spent renovating the house.
Harry’s cousin Eugenie, Andrew’s younger daughter, and her husband were given use of the property after the couple left, but the Sun said they had since moved out.
Harry and Meghan have rarely returned to Britain since their departure for the U.S., but have used Frogmore on the few occasions they have been back, such as for celebrations for the late Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee last year.
Relations between the couple and the rest of the family have become even more strained since then, following stinging criticisms of the royals and their aides in his book “Spare”, which broke records for speed of sales.
The disagreements have cast major doubts on whether Harry will attend his father’s coronation in May.
($1 = 0.8310 pounds)
(Reporting by Michael HoldenEditing by Mark Heinrich)
