by Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, can no longer call Frogmore Cottage their British home away from home, the couple’s global press secretary has said.
“We can confirm that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been asked to vacate their residence at Frogmore Cottage,” Ashley Hansen said in a statement on Wednesday.
The couple moved out of the home, which sits on the grounds of Windsor Castle, to southern California in 2020, when they stepped down as frontline members of the British royal family.
They said then that Frogmore Cottage would remain their base when they visited the UK.
The property, that the bbc reported it is a 10-bedroom estate given to the couple by the late Queen, initially intended to be their primary residence and renovated for them.
In 2020, they said they had repaid more than $3 million of public money used to remodel the house. Frogmore’s renovations were among the complaints from critics when the couple stopped working as royals.
Some critics accused them of wanting to escape their royal duties and retain some of the benefits — specifically, living in the historic residence after it was renovated with British taxpayers’ money.
The money was put back into something called a Sovereign Grant, which is money generated by a vast state-owned empire. The government gives the royal family a share of the money, around $100 million a year, to run their affairs.
Meghan and Harry married in May 2018 and have two children, Archie and Lilibet.
They signed a deal with Netflix in 2020 for an undisclosed amount to produce movies, shows, and documentaries. “Harry and Megan” debuted in December 2022 before millions of viewers.
In January, Harry continued to speak openly about his life in the royal family and the intense media scrutiny he and Meghan were under.
“They took me out of my country,” Harry told Anderson Cooper on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
He has long denounced an unhealthy relationship between the royal family and the British media, as well as blaming photographers for the death of his mother, Princess Diana.
victoria di gioacchino and The Associated Press contributed.
