King Charles includes Prince Harry in poignant Father’s Day tribute amid royal family rift

The Duke of Sussex last saw his father at his coronation ceremony last month

The King and Queen have paid tribute to “Dads everywhere” on Father’s Day (Sunday 18 June).

In social media posts, King Charles III also included a special photograph of his sons, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex, from their youth.

The royal family’s official Twitter account shared the photograph, alongside one of the King with his late father, Prince Philip, and Queen Camilla with her late father, Bruce Shand.

The caption read: “To Dads everywhere, we wish you a very special Father’s Day today.”

In the image of Charles with his sons, the King – then the Prince of Wales – is seen wearing a green jumper over a green kilt, with matching kilt socks.

The trio appeared to be photographed in the Scottish Highlands. A young Prince Harry, wearing a pale blue button-down shirt and khaki chinos, points towards something on the ground while his father and elder brother, William, look in the direction he is pointing.

The King’s inclusion of Harry in his post comes amid an ongoing rift between the duke and the rest of the royal family.

Harry and Meghan Markle, who live in Montecito, California, with their two children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, have repeatedly aired their grievances with the royal family through interviews, their Netflix series, and the duke’s recent memoir, Spare.

The couple have claimed that the royal family were involved in “leaking” and “planting” negative stories about them in the press. Meghan also alleged that an unnamed member of the royal family once expressed concern about “how dark” Archie’s skin would be before he was born, during the couple’s explosive 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Other bombshells dropped by the Sussexes include claims that Buckingham Palace refused to help Meghan when she experienced suicidal thoughts during her time as a working royal. In Spare, Harry also alleged that William once physically attacked him by pushing him to the ground.

The duke attended his father’s coronation on 6 May without his wife or children. He left immediately after the ceremony to return home in time to celebrate his son’s fourth birthday, which fell on the same day as the coronation.

Harry also visited the UK in recent weeks to give testimony at the High Court in his phone hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers. However, it is believed that the prince did not see the King or William during his brief trip.

(AP)

On the other hand, Meghan has not been in the UK since last September, when she attended the state funeral of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Harry and Meghan were reportedly “not invited” to Charles’s first Trooping the Colour birthday celebration, which took place on Saturday (17 June). The public celebration of the British monarch’s birthday was attended by senior working members of the royal family, including William, the Princess Royal, and the Duke of Edinburgh.

Over the weekend, it also emerged that the Sussexes have parted ways with Spotify less than a year after debuting their podcast Archetypes, despite landing a multi-year partnership with the audio streaming service for $200m (£156m).

Spotify and Archewell Audio said in a joint statement that the decision was mutual. But a report by The Wall Street Journal claimed that the couple did not meet “the productivity benchmarks required to receive the full payout from the deal”, with the duchess releasing only 12 episodes of Archetypes since the partnership began.

A leading Spotify executive, Bill Simmons, branded the Sussexes a pair of “f***ing grifters” in his own podcast, The Ringer.

The Independent has contacted Harry and Meghan’s representative for comment.