Father issues seem to run in the family for Prince Harry and his wife, the former Meghan Markle.
The estrangement between Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and her own father, Thomas Markle, has made headlines ever since she married into Britain’s royal family — an event Meghan's father wasn’t on hand to witness.
In fact, it was Harry’s dad, Prince Charles, who stood in for the father of the bride and walked her down the aisle at the 2018 royal wedding.
But things between Harry and Charles have changed since then.
During a recent interview with The Cut, the duchess explained that she hoped her and Harry's exit from the royal family would not lead to an estrangement between Harry and his father.
“Harry said to me, ‘I lost my dad in this process,'" Meghan recalled, referring to her relationship with her own father. "It doesn’t have to be the same for them as it was for me, but that’s (Harry's) decision.”
After The Cut story was published, a spokesperson for the duchess told NBC News that Meghan’s “lost my dad” comment referred to her own father. The clarification over Meghan's comment was first reported by the BBC.
Harry has spoken openly about tensions with his father in recent years.
In 2021, in an expansive interview with Oprah Winfrey, Harry noted that, just before he and Meghan had announced their plans to step down as senior royals, there was a time his father stopped taking his calls.
“I feel really let down because he’s been through something similar,” Harry told Winfrey, hinting at the media scrutiny both his parents faced during their marriage and divorce.
But he insisted that despite the strain, "I will always love him."
"There’s a lot of hurt that’s happened, and I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship," Harry said.
Clarification (8/30/2022 8:30 a.m.): A previous version of this story said Prince Harry described his relationship with his own father as "lost." Representatives for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, later clarified that the duchess was talking about her own father. The two have been estranged for several years.