Harry, Meghan ‘upset and astonished’ Canadians didn’t pay for security, says author

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may be all about wanting financial independence and distancing themselves from the Royal Family now but a couple years ago, not so much.

Harry and Meghan stepped back from their royal duties in March 2020 but prior to that, they had spent periods of time in Canada, including the Christmas holidays in 2019.

In February 2020, Canadian authorities revealed they would stop providing security for the couple, news that stunned Harry and Meghan, according to royal author Tom Quinn.

“When they went to Canada, they discovered the Canadians didn’t want to pay for their security, and the Duchy of Lancaster didn’t want to pay while they were there,” Quinn said in the Channel 5 documentary, Meghan at 40.

“I think they were both upset and astonished,” he added.

“When Meghan and Harry gave the impression that they were hard done by, this produced a lot of negative press coverage because they have a great deal of money,” continued Quinn.

“They had to repay several million for the refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage and I don’t think they expected that.”

Canadians, however, did pay. The security bill for the Sussexes’ stay cost taxpayers just over $55,000, according to documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

They were guarded by the RCMP between November and January at an $18-million mansion on Vancouver Island.

Harry and Meghan eventually jetted off to California, where they have since scored a number of lucrative media, production and publication deals.

During their interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry dropped the bomb that the royal purse strings had been lopped off.

“We didn’t have a plan. The Netflix deal was suggested by somebody else by the point of where my family literally cut me off financially, and I had to afford security for us,” he told Winfrey in March.

“They cut me off in the first quarter of 2020. But I’ve got what my mum left me, and, without that, we would not have been able to do this.”

At the time, royal biographer Richard Fitzwilliams was baffled, telling the Express that it was widely understood Harry and Meghan wanted to be “financially independent” from the royals.

“I was very surprised that Harry implied the reason they had taken the Netflix and Spotify deals was because they had been cut off financially,” he said.

“I always understood that they wished to make their own way financially and I always thought they wanted to be completely self-sufficient and this is part of a media drive.”

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