Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 3, are sixth and seventh in line to the British throne. But according to their father, Prince Harry, they may never be able to safely return to the country of his birth, an emotional Duke of Sussex lamented in a bombshell-filled sit-down with BBC News May 2.

“I can’t see a world in which I would be bringing my wife and children back to the U.K. at this point,” he said hours after losing his years-long legal appeal against a 2020 government decision stripping him, wife Meghan Markle and their kids of automatic police protection when they visit Britain. Fears of violence are just too great a gamble to take, the 40-year-old explained, adding, “I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show my children my homeland.”

Harry is “devastated,” he confessed to the BBC. And he blames the Royal Household for influencing the government’s Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC) to pull security despite his having the highest threat level of any member of the royal family. Though he’s still grappling with the London court’s decision to let the removal stand, in the wake of the ruling, it’s become clear Harry has “lost control” of the situation, a source tells Star. “There’s no saving him. He’s sealed his fate. The royals have cut him off.”

But for Meghan, adds the source, Harry’s devastation is “a win,” as it’s now certain there’s no going back for the pair, who quit the royal family in 2020. Some Sussex critics believe this legal decision has even worked into the 43-year-old’s plan to keep her family away from her in-laws. “This is what she wanted all along,” says the source. “She had no intention of allowing her children to grow up among the royals.”

Calling The Shots

The Sussexes have built a rich life in Meghan’s native California over the last five years. It’s where Lili was born, where they own a $14.65 million home in the luxe enclave of Montecito, where they run their Archewell Foundation charity and where the duchess leads her newly launched businesses — the Netflix entertaining series With Love, Meghan, her Confessions of a Female Founder podcast and her As Ever product line. To her, all is well. As the former Suits actress said at the Time100 Summit in April, “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.” Despite missing his homeland, Harry, too, has expressed his love for Cali. “I very much enjoy living here and bringing my kids up here,” he said in December. Referencing his late mother, Diana, he added, “I feel as though it’s the life my mum wanted for me.”

It’s definitely the life Meghan wants for him. “She may have supported Harry’s fight to reinstate security in the U.K., but she gives the impression she’s glad it’s over,” explains the source. “It’s no secret she didn’t want to return after the way she was treated” by the British press, whose attacks on her were, according to the Sussexes, sanctioned and fueled by palace courtiers with the support of the royal family

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Some, however, might argue the Sussexes want it both ways. When they left Britain in 2020, they promised the late Queen Elizabeth II that they would drop their coveted His/Her Royal Highness titles. But in April, it emerged that Meghan is still using HRH privately, a move that’s angered Harry’s brother, Prince William, 42, says an insider, to the point he’s privately vowed to “strip Harry and Meghan of their HRH title once he becomes king.” (Harry is also still involved in the Diana Awards, a charity he and William lead — separately — that honors their mother’s legacy, traveling to Las Vegas on May 6 for an event.)

And despite claims they want privacy, Meghan has also been showing Archie and Lili, though not revealing their faces, more and more on social media since she rejoined Instagram in January, leading to allegations she’s using them to promote her brands.

Wishful Thinking

Now, so long as danger levels remain high — in a statement shared on Sussex.com May 2, the Afghanistan war vet confirmed he and his family have been “subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats, including from Al-Qaeda” — the option to go back is essentially off the table. It’s well known that Harry’s been estranged from William for years, but in his BBC interview, the Duke admitted his father, King Charles III, 76, “won’t speak to me because of this security stuff”— which, despite palace claims to the contrary, Harry said he believes Charles has the power to influence, considering his top adviser sits on RAVEC’s board — even in the wake of the monarch’s 2024 cancer diagnosis.

“I would love reconciliation with my family,” Harry said. “There’s no point in continuing to fight anymore. Life is precious. I don’t know how much longer my father has.”

Those comments were another bridge too far. “Harry must have known the consequences of speaking out would be like a bomb dropping. He insists to friends that he doesn’t want to hurt his father or anyone in the family, but the fact remains that he’s done just that,” says the source. The royals simply don’t trust Harry and Meghan after everything they’ve revealed about family tensions in their 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, the duke’s 2023 memoir, Spare, and now Harry’s BBC interview in which he further accused his family and their courtiers of removing his security as a strategy for controlling him and Meghan.

“Tragic but true — Prince Harry’s behavior is unforgivable,” financier Ben Goldsmith, 44, who grew up with the duke, told one British outlet in the wake of Harry’s BBC interview. An unnamed former pal shared similar sentiments, acknowledging, “It’s very sad, but we all know that [Harry] doesn’t want to hear things he disagrees with.”

Sad Truth

The way Harry sees it, the source explains, “his family in the U.K. are making it impossible for his children to know them, and that hurts and baffles him. They are children so why wouldn’t The Firm want to protect them?” It’s especially painful that Archie and Lilibet will never know their cousins, William’s three children with Princess Kate: George, 11, Charlotte, 10, and 7-year-old Louis.

As the second insider says, Harry’s royal relatives believe “Harry has made his own bed.” And now, adds the first source, they’ve grown resigned to the fact they “might never see Archie and Lili again.”