NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n
When Prince Harry<\/a> first announced his engagement to Meghan Markle<\/a>, his grandfather, the late Prince Philip<\/a>, issued a blunt warning.\n<\/p>\n The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their engagement<\/a> in November 2017, a little over a year after news of their romance first broke<\/a>. Philip reacted to the news with reluctance about Meghan, 44, entering the royal fold, the Daily Mail<\/a> reported, citing Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, historian Andrew Lownie\u2019s biography of Prince Andrew<\/a> and Sarah Ferguson<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n In Entitled, which was released earlier this year, Lownie writes that upon learning of their plans to wed, Prince Philip warned: \u201cOne steps out with actresses, one doesn’t marry them.”\n<\/p>\n Philip\u2019s caution to Harry, 41, after learning of the news was first reported by The Sunday Times<\/a> in 2019.\n<\/p>\n Prince Philip in 2020.<\/p>\n Pool\/Max Mumby\/Getty<\/p>\n \u201cIdle dinner party gossip, perhaps, although it does sound like a Prince Philip bon mot,\u201d the outlet stated at the time. (Philip\u2019s quick wit and no-nonsense humor were legendary<\/a>, both inside and outside palace walls.)\n<\/p>\n The Duke of Edinburgh, who died in 2021 at age 99<\/a>, was not the only one who reportedly expressed wariness toward Meghan and Harry\u2019s engagement.\n<\/p>\n In 2019, a source told PEOPLE that Prince William<\/a> \u2014 who dated college sweetheart Kate Middleton<\/a> for about eight years before tying the knot \u2014 cautioned his younger brother that things were moving too quickly<\/a>, leaving Harry angry and hurt.\n<\/p>\n Harry wrote in his 2023 memoir, Spare<\/a>, that William, 43, insulted Meghan in an incident after they had already wed<\/a> \u2014 but later clarified that William never tried to dissuade him from marrying her.\n<\/p>\n The Duke of Sussex claimed in Spare that a 2019 disagreement between the brothers \u2014 which he said turned violent \u2014 began when William called Meghan “difficult,” “rude” and “abrasive.\u201d In response, Harry said he replied that his brother was simply “parrot[ing] the press narrative” about his wife.\n<\/p>\n Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at their 2018 wedding.<\/p>\n BEN STANSALL\/POOL\/AFP\/AFP via Getty<\/p>\n In an interview tied to the memoir, Harry was asked by ITV News\u2019 Tom Bradby<\/a> if his older brother tried to dissuade him from marrying Meghan, and stated that William “never did that.”<\/a>\n<\/p>\n Can’t get enough of PEOPLE’s Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter<\/a> to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n “No, he never tried to dissuade me from marrying Megan, but he aired some concerns, very early on and said, you know, this is gonna be really hard for you,” the Duke of Sussex recalled during the interview. “And I still to this day, I don’t truly understand which part of what he was talking about.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in October 2025.<\/p>\n Joe Scarnici\/MLB Photos via Getty\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut maybe, you know, maybe he predicted what the British press’ reaction was gonna be,\u201d added Harry.\n<\/p>\n During the same interview, Harry told Bradby that he saw a “red mist<\/a>” in his brother during the emotional exchange, and added to Anderson Cooper<\/a> on 60 Minutes<\/a> that he felt like William “was coming for my wife<\/a>.”\n<\/p>\n The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who first met in early 2016, tied the knot<\/a> in May 2018.\n<\/p>\n They later stepped back from their royal roles<\/a> in 2021, and now live in Montecito, Calif., with their twoo children, Prince Archie,<\/a> 6, and Princess Lilibet<\/a>, 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW Prince Philip issued a warning to his grandson, Prince Harry, after learning of Harry’s engagement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[5105,7710,519,448],"class_list":{"0":"post-589454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-royal","9":"tag-royal-families","10":"tag-royal-family","11":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}