Prince Harry and Meghan Markle 'underestimated' life without the royals

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit the royal family, and called time on their royal duties when they decided to leave London in favour of life in America in 2020.

But two years on from their departure and setting up a new life as a family of four, with son Archie and daughter Lilibet, one royal expert thinks the couple may be regretting their decision and have "underestimated" how much they needed the royal family, the royal status and leverage that came with it.

Royal author, Tina Brown, told The Washington Post in a video interview: "I think they both complete underestimate what it was going to be like without the Palace platform.

"However much they hated, and I think they really did, the constraints and the pettiness, essentially they conceived, of the Palace and the advisors - trying doing it without the Palace advisors, right?

"Because what the Palace does, of course, it has an amazing convening power, there's no one who won't take a phone call from Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace, they've got a huge convening power.

"Every invitation in the world comes through that conduit and private secretaries can just sift and say what about appearing in this, or why don't you do this? All of that is now gone and they have to have PRs do that for them and their judgement is not necessarily the best judgement.

"They are trying to leverage the royal brand and there is no PR who really knows how to do that better than Buckingham Palace or Kensington Palace."

Tina, who has recently released her book The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor—The Truth and the Turmoil continued to weigh in on the couple and their decision to leave the royal family.

She believes Harry, 37, wanted to cut his ties from his royal relatives and upbringing, but it was 40-year-old wife who put the final nail in the coffin.

Tina added: "I really think Harry wanted out, himself… Meghan gave Harry the tools to leave.

"She understood the world of agents and deals. I mean this wasn’t Harry’s world, but suddenly he had in Meghan a very worldly strategist who he decided to trust above all the other advisors."