Meghan Markle’s awkward royal balcony moment with Kate Middleton is back in the spotlight after Prince Harry claimed one tiny joke brought the mood to a screeching halt.
The Duchess of Sussex made her first appearance at Trooping the Colour in June 2018, just weeks after marrying Harry in a lavish royal wedding watched around the world. But according to Harry, what should have been a happy family moment quickly turned painfully uncomfortable.
In his memoir Spare, Harry recalled that he and Meghan had returned from their Mediterranean honeymoon “just in time” for the official celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday.
At first, he said, everyone seemed cheerful.
“Everyone present was in a good mood, upbeat,” Harry wrote.
Then Kate Middleton turned to Meghan and asked what she thought of her first Trooping the Colour.
Meghan’s answer was just one word.
“Colourful,” she joked.
According to Harry, the response was met with a silence so brutal it nearly swallowed the balcony whole.
“And a yawning silence threatened to swallow us all whole,” he wrote.
Harry did not explain exactly why the joke landed so badly, but the moment has since become another symbol of the icy tension that reportedly grew between the Sussexes and the Waleses behind palace doors.
Just days later, Meghan joined Queen Elizabeth II for her first royal trip with the monarch. Harry claimed the two women “got on famously,” suggesting Meghan was able to charm the queen even as things with William and Kate remained strained.
But behind the scenes, the so-called “Fab Four” were already cracking.
Later that month, Harry said he, Meghan, William and Kate sat down in an attempt to clear the air. Instead, the meeting reportedly turned into a tense list of grievances.
Harry claimed Kate was upset over the now-infamous bridesmaid dress drama before the Sussex wedding. He also wrote that William and Kate were annoyed Harry and Meghan had not given them Easter gifts.
Another sore spot involved Meghan allegedly telling Kate she had “baby brain” while the princess was pregnant. Kate reportedly told Meghan she owed her an apology for talking about her hormones.
Harry and Meghan, meanwhile, were reportedly irritated that William and Kate had switched seats at their wedding.
“None of this airing of grievances was doing any good,” Harry wrote. “We weren’t getting anywhere.”
Harry and Meghan last took part in Trooping the Colour in 2019, before stepping back from royal duties and leaving Britain in early 2020.
They returned during Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, but watched the parade from a side window of Buckingham Palace instead of appearing on the famous balcony with senior royals.
On Saturday, June 13, 2026, the royal family gathered once again for Trooping the Colour in London. King Charles III, Queen Camilla, Prince William, Kate Middleton and their three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, all took part in the annual parade.
Harry and Meghan were not invited.
While the royal family carried on the tradition in London, Harry remained stateside and appeared remotely at an Invictus event in Germany.
The Duke of Sussex spoke by video for the opening day of the Invictus Germany Sports Festival in Düsseldorf, tied to the wounded service member and veteran competition he founded in 2014.
Harry told competitors it was an “honor” to send his message as they gathered for another Invictus sporting event.
“Germany is setting a powerful example of what it means to honor service with dignity and enduring commitment,” he said.
But back in Britain, the balcony looked very different from the one Meghan stood on in 2018.
And years later, Harry’s account of that one-word joke still paints a picture of a royal family already struggling to hide the chill.
