Meghan Markle question that meant Prince Harry ‘lost a friend’

Meghan Markle question that meant Prince Harry ‘lost a friend’
Prince Harry was reportedly so “hurt” by a concerned question that his friend Tom ‘Skippy’ Inskip asked about his relationship with Meghan Markle that he banned him from the evening wedding reception

There’s been no shortage of drama surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2018 wedding, with tales of family disputes, stern words from the late Queen, and Meghan’s dissatisfaction with certain wedding plans. It was surely a challenging period for palace staff, but it seems they weren’t the only ones struggling.

Claims have emerged that some of Harry’s close school friends felt he had “changed too much” since starting his relationship with Meghan. When they expressed their concerns, they were said to have been met with Harry’s anger and subsequently banned from the evening wedding reception. In the book Finding Freedom, authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand share that Prince Harry’s friend Tom Inskip – known as ‘Skippy’ – felt he’d “lost a friend” after Harry and Meghan’s 2018 wedding.

The authors claim Tom had voiced concern over the speed of Harry’s new romance and questioned whether he should live with Meghan before marrying. Despite Tom’s comments allegedly “coming from a good place”, Prince Harry was reportedly “very hurt” and excluded his old school friend from the evening reception. They wrote: “Notable [absence from the reception was] Skippy, Harry’s old friend, who had questioned the prince’s relationship with Meghan, and his wife, Lara.”

“They were invited to the wedding ceremony and lunchtime reception [hosted by The Queen] but didn’t make the cut for the evening bash.” Details in the book revealed that Tom, a once close friend of Prince Harry, was rather miffed the day after the Royal nuptials, telling mates at a brunch “Meghan has changed Harry too much” and added sorrowfully that “we’ve lost him”.

Around the same time, it emerged that some of Prince Harry’s old Eton friends felt he was evidently mesmerised by A-list celebrities like the Clooneys and Oprah Winfrey. The authors wrote: “Many of Harry’s old friends said that the evening guest list was the prince and his bride’s way of saying ‘these are the people we want in our lives moving forward'”.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made headlines around the globe in 2020 when they decided to step down as senior members of the Royal Family and start anew across the pond. They’ve set up their new life in the USA with their two little ones, Prince Archie, aged five, and Princess Lilibet, who is three.