The prince is finally admitting to feeling out of place in America.
However, one close insider tells New Idea exclusively that his optimistic attitude isn’t quite as visible behind closed doors, as per New Idea.
“Harry still finds America and its ways quite foreign,” says the source. “He worries about the social issues that are far more prevalent here, including gun violence. He spends most of his time trying to recreate his life back in London, including begging the few friends he has left in social circles to visit him.”
Indeed, New Idea understands that his childhood friend Charlie van Straubenzee paid him a visit just last week, following his cousin Princess Eugenie’s stay at his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s Montecito home in February.
“Harry wishes he could just go for a pint at a pub with his mates, but that’s impossible in Santa Barbara, where he’d be immediately recognized,” says a source.
“It’s a far cry from his locals in London where publicans were happy to provide him private spaces to linger over a beer. It’s the little things like that he misses, as well as key things like safety.”
According to a separate source, Harry, 37, was “never that keen” on moving to California and was content with the “happy medium” provided by his and Meghan’s Christmas 2019 stay on Canada’s Vancouver Island.
“The plan as far as Harry knew, was to trial life in Canada, where he could enjoy the trappings of his royal status in a Commonwealth country, but they’d be within a three-hour flight to LA to cater to Meghan’s Hollywood ambitions,” the insider says.
“But when COVID hit in 2020 and Canadian borders to the US were closing, Meghan hit the panic button and decided they should flee to LA.
“Six months later they’d bought a huge, expensive house in Montecito and Meghan was cold calling American politicians and booking them in with Netflix.
“It was a lot for Harry to digest and his head has only recently stopped spinning. He finds himself missing the quiet life in Canada very often.”
Among the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s many new showbiz commitments, Harry signed up to write a memoir – but that has recently, and rather mysteriously, come to a halt.
Despite Harry’s announcement that he was working with a ghostwriter and that the book would be released this year, The Times UK revealed last week that it no longer has a release date.
“What that tells us is that Harry may finally be feeling some regret over the way he’s gone to town on his family in the past couple of years,” says a source. “His family will be hoping that’s the case.”