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For Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, their family’s long-anticipated return to Britain finally delivered something that’s been in short supply in recent years — positive headlines.
After privately reuniting with King Charles III and Queen Camilla earlier this month — marking the first time their children have seen their grandfather in person in more than four years — the Duke and Duchess of Sussex scored a public relations win.
But one branding expert believes the couple’s biggest challenge is only just beginning.
One successful trip isn’t enough
Harry and Meghan’s July 10 reunion with the king at his Highgrove estate came as Harry traveled to Britain for Invictus Games events marking one year until the 2027 competition in Birmingham, England.
Meghan joined him with their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, though neither she nor the kids were photographed or seen publicly during the visit. The family also spent time with Harry’s Spencer relatives at his late mother Princess Diana‘s childhood home, Althorp, before returning to California.
According to Renae Smith, founder of PR and branding agency The Atticism, the trip checked many of the right boxes from a public relations perspective, though that might not be enough for the couple in the long run.
“Reputations are rebuilt through repeated behavior over long periods of time, not one well-managed visit,” Smith told Britain’s Daily Express.
“The challenge for Harry and Meghan has always been consistency. Just when things begin to settle, something usually happens that pulls them back into controversy or creates another contradictory headline,” she continued.
“So the real question isn’t whether this trip was successful. In the PR world, yes, it was. The real question is whether they can repeat this approach another 10 times. … And for this, we must wait and see,” she added.
A difficult-to-repair image
Smith’s comments come amid ongoing challenges for Harry and Meghan’s public reputation in the U.K., where their popularity has steadily declined since they stepped back as senior working royals in 2020 and relocated to the former Suits star’s native California.
Harry has long maintained that speaking publicly about his experiences as a member of the royal family is about correcting false media narratives and simply setting the record straight.
“I don’t believe that I aired my dirty laundry in public,” Harry told The Guardian in 2025, referring to the many revelations in his bestselling 2023 memoir, Spare. “It was a difficult message, but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear.”
According to Harry, “It is not about revenge, it is about accountability. You cannot have reconciliation before you have truth.”
But many Britons viewed the book, the couple’s 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey — during which they alleged an unnamed member of the royal family had raised concerns about the skin color of their future children — and their 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, as public attacks on the royal family.
What the latest polls show
Whether Harry and Meghan can keep up the goodwill remains to be seen.
According to YouGov‘s latest popularity tracker, Prince William remains Britain’s most popular royal with a 71 percent positive rating, followed by Kate Middleton at 65 percent. Princess Anne ranks third at 63 percent, while Charles comes in fourth with 54 percent. Camilla is in eighth place with a 35 percent positive rating.
Harry, meanwhile, ranks 11th with a 27 percent popularity rating.
Meghan sits even lower in 14th place with an 18 percent popularity rating, putting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex well behind the senior working royals and several members of the extended family.
The rankings reflect the challenge Smith described. While the July reunion with Charles generated positive headlines, Harry and Meghan continue to trail the senior working royals by a wide margin in public opinion.
Separate YouGov America polling in June found Meghan’s favorability among Americans at 27 percent — down from the third quarter of 2025 when 37 percent of respondents viewed her favorably, the Daily Express reported.
Of course, no one has polled lower than the disgraced former Duke of York, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. A YouGov royal family favorability survey conducted in January showed that at the time, “just 3 percent of Britons said they had a positive view” of the former Prince Andrew, “the lowest figure we have recorded to date,” YouGov wrote, adding that “fully 90 percent of the public have an unfavorable [opinion] of the former Duke of York.”
