Much of the conversation surrounding Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s interview with Oprah Winfrey has centered on issues of race and mental health, and rightfully so. But the couple devoted a large portion of their sit-down to a separate concern: security. They told Winfrey they believed they would remain under the protection of the royal family’s official, 24-hour security service after they stepped down from their roles as senior royals—but just before they announced the move, they were informed on “short notice” that wasn’t the case, Harry said. On its face, the royal family’s decision to stop protecting a prince, his wife, and their child just because they wanted to ease up on their official duties might seem baffling. But when you unpack what kind of security Harry and Meghan wanted, how much it costs, and crucially, where that money comes from, the story gets a little more complicated.
Not everyone in the royal family has a 24-hour security detail. That level of protection is reserved almost exclusively for senior royals, who face a high level of risk because of the number of public appearances they make, according to Victoria Arbiter, a royal columnist and commentator who spoke with Vox. Senior royals like the Queen and her husband, Prince Phillip; Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton; and Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, all receive around-the-clock protection. Non-senior royals, like the Queen’s granddaughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, do not. (In 2011, they were stripped of their security detail, which reportedly cost £500,000 a year, amid public pressure.)
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The reason only some royals have a constant security detail is, essentially, because it’s expensive. According to the Evening Standard, 24-hour police protection for the royal family costs an estimated £100 million a year, or roughly $138.8 million. And that money comes directly from British taxpayers, Arbiter told Vox. Those taxpayers fund London’s Metropolitan Police, and it is Met officers who protect the royals, according to the Evening Standard.
When Harry and Meghan first moved to Canada in the fall of 2019, they were still senior royals—and because of that, they still had a full-time, taxpayer-funded security detail. The officers in it came straight from the Metropolitan Police in London, according to Vanity Fair. Despite public criticism and negative press over the cost of the arrangement, Harry and Meghan remained under the protection of that security detail through the end of March 2020, when they officially stepped down from their roles as senior royals. At that point, their detail was revoked.
In their interview with Winfrey, Harry and Meghan made that seem abnormal—but in reality, that’s just how the system works: Senior royals get 24-hour protection, and non-senior royals don’t.
“They were living in Canada as private individuals,” Arbiter told Vox. “They then moved to the United States. They couldn’t justify to the British taxpayers why they were still having taxpayer-funded security, even though they were living in another country and they were no longer senior working members of the royal family.”
Harry pointed out during the couple’s sit-down with Winfrey that there was no “change of threat or risk” just because they’d stepped down as senior royals, and according to Harry, a representative for the royal family agreed with him. But British taxpayers don’t fund security for royals solely because they’re at risk; they fund it because they’re carrying out royal duties that constitute a public service. After Harry and Meghan relinquished those duties, and stopped performing that public service, why would taxpayers keep shelling out as much as £8 million a year to protect them?
“Harry was right that the threat assessment risk hadn’t dropped,” Arbiter told Vox. “But the royal family answers to the British public, and the British public needs to know that they’re getting value for their money. If they found out that their taxpayer funds were going to protect two private individuals living 6,000 miles away, there would have been an outcry.”
It’s unclear if Harry and Meghan wanted the money for their security detail to come from taxpayer funds or some other, private royal family source. But having stepped away from their senior roles, it no longer made sense for British citizens to foot the bill.
Harry and Meghan currently pay for their own security, which they can afford thanks to multi-million-dollar deals they struck with Netflix and Spotify, they told Winfrey. Those are presumably just the first of many lucrative partnerships they’ll make through Archewell, their new production company and charitable foundation. The couple should have no problem ginning up enough money to keep themselves and their children safe for the rest of their lives.
Some argue that they shouldn’t have to shoulder that cost, and that stripping Meghan and Harry of their security detail was a “monstrous” thing to do, especially because the threats Meghan has received—threats she’s concerned her son will receive as well—are racist and violent. They argue, essentially, that the position Harry and Meghan are in isn’t fair. But what’s more fair: forcing everyday, tax-paying U.K. citizens to cover the cost of a 24-hour security team for two extremely famous, wildly wealthy people—or just having them or their famously wealthy family pay for it?
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