Prince Harry has said he will not bring his wife Meghan Markle on any future trips to the UK because he’s concerned for her safety.
In a new interview for ITV’s documentary Tabloids on Trial that aired Thursday, July 25, the Duke of Sussex, 39, emphasized that he believes threats against his wife would dangerously imperil her if she visited the UK.
Speaking about his failed bid to get official UK police security on his visits, which he said he would reimburse the government for, Harry said, “The U.K. is my home. The U.K. is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the United States.”
“That cannot happen if there is no possibility to keep them safe when they are on U.K. soil.”
As for Meghan, he added, “I can’t put my wife in danger like that, and given my experiences in life, I’m reluctant to unnecessarily put myself in harm’s way too.”
“It’s still dangerous, and all it takes is one lone actor, one person who reads this stuff to act on what they have read,” Harry said, referring to what he views as incendiary tabloid reporting on the Duchess of Sussex.
“And whether it’s a knife or acid, whatever it is, and these are things that are of genuine concern for me. It’s one of the reasons why I won’t bring my wife back to this country.”
Security concerns were at the heart of the duke’s decision to step back from his role as a senior working member of the royal family.
The youngest son of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, also remarked that he doesn’t think his recent lawsuits against media organizations is bringing more potentially dangerous attention on himself.
“There is more than enough attention on me and my wife anyway,” he said.
“They pushed me too far,” he added of the tabloid press. “It got to a point where you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. But I don’t think there’s anybody in the world better suited and placed to be able to see this through than myself.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Harry said that his battle with the press was a “central piece” to his rift with the rest of the Royal Family.
“But that’s a hard question to answer, because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press,” he added.
However, he said that his late grandmother Queen Elizabeth II supported his legal battles with tabloid news media.
“We had many conversations before she passed,” he said. “This is very much something that she supported. She knew how much this meant to me. She’s very much up there, going ‘see this through to the end!’ Without question.”