Coronation organizers wonder if Harry will be a ‘no-show’: report

Even though Prince Harry finally let Buckingham Palace know — more than a week after the RVSP deadline passed — that he would be attending King Charles III’s coronation Saturday, he’s still keeping organizers in suspense about key details about his plans.

Sources told The Mail on Sunday that Harry has yet to let organizers know “when he is coming, where is staying, when he is going back and whether he is happy with his seating position” in Westminster Abbey. Organizers even suspect he could pull out at the last minute.

The Sun reported last week that Harry’s solo trip to the UK — without his wife Meghan Markle — to see father Charles and stepmother Camilla crowned king and queen probably will be a short — just 24 hours at most. He’ll attend the 11 a.m. service, then pop back on an airplane so he can fly back to the United States and join Meghan in Montecito to celebrate their son Archie’s fourth birthday.

But this “Harry in a hurry” scenario hasn’t been confirmed to organizers, leaving them to expect that “anything could happen” — ranging from him making a token appearance to being “a last minute no-show,” the Daily Mail said.

One source told The Daily Mail: “He has not been responding other than in a ‘We acknow­ledge your email’ holding manner. It’s like trying to communicate with Mars — it was easier to deal with Sinn Fein.” Controversy erupted last week after Michelle O’Neill, the vice president and the leader of Sinn Fein, accepted an invitation to the coronation. Sinn Fein is an Irish republican political party that is dedicated to the reunification of Ireland and an end to British rule in Northern Ireland.

While Sinn Fein has been responsive, Harry “seems to be adopting a High Noon approach, making everyone sweat about his movements,” a coronation source told the Daily Mail. “While the royals are confident that he will show up, others involved are not quite so convinced.”

As for Harry letting organizers know whether he’s OK with his coronation seating, his placement at recent royal events has become a point of contention, the Daily Mail also reported last week. In fact, sources told the Daily Mail that Harry’s delay in accepting his coronation invitation was due to him being “preoccupied” about where he would sit in Westminster Abbey. There were “extensive discussions” between him and the palace about the issue, the Daily Mail said

“Harry’s side was keen to find out, presumably because they wanted to rubber-stamp it, what the seating plan at the abbey is,” one source told the Daily Mail. “There’s been extensive back and forth about who they (Harry and Meghan) would be sitting behind if they came. And who would be behind them.”

Seating for Harry and Meghan at royal events since their acrimonious departure from royal life in early 2020 has become a fraught issue. After announcing that they would no longer serve as senior working royals, Harry and Meghan were placed behind Prince William and Kate Middleton for the Commonwealth Day Service at Westminster Abbey in March 2020, their final event before moving to the United States.

The rift between Harry and Meghan and his brother and sister-in-law, Prince William and Kate Middleton, was on full display last June when the Sussexes came to the U.K. for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee. When joining other members of the royal family at St. Paul’s Cathedral for a service, the Sussexes were shown to their seats without fanfare before Charles, Camilla, William and Kate walked in.

The couple’s seats also happened to be on the other side of the nave from the senior royals, which was, for Harry, the equivalent of “social Siberia,” the Daily Mail said. The London Times said the seating denoted them as “second-rank” royals and “not nearly as important as before.” Headlines also were generated over William’s apparent refusal to make eye contact with his younger brother as he walked in.

This pattern of giving Harry and Meghan a lower status at royal events continued at the queen’s funeral in September. Harry and Meghan were squeezed into a corner at the end of the second row — with a candle even obscuring a clear view of the Duchess of Sussex.

Tensions between Harry and members of his family have only grown since September, after he and Meghan made numerous allegations about royal cruelty and dysfunction and the monarchy’s collusion with abusive U.K. tabloids in their Netflix docuseries, Harry’s tell-all memoir “Spare” and Harry’s lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. newspapers.

Seating arrangements for the coronation haven’t been confirmed at this time, but the Daily Mail said that senior working royals will likely occupy the front rows, while Harry will probably be seated with “safer” members of the family to avoid “unhelpful body language” around cameras.

There have been reports that Harry and William no longer speak to each other. Given Harry’s claims that Camilla also was complicit in leaking stories to the tabloids to improve her public image, it’s also likely that efforts will be made to keep him as far from the new queen as possible.

OK magazine reported that Harry could be seated a full 10 rows back, while the late Princess Diana’s butler Paul Burrell told GBN News: “There is no chance of a reconciliation anytime soon, I’m afraid — I think he will get a very icy reception from the Windsors.”

That’s if Harry decides to attend the coronation at all. As sources told The Daily Mail, anything is possible at this point with Charles’ renegade younger son.