Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s relationship announcement in 2016 left King Charles ’crushed’ with just 20 minutes notice

A royal book has recently claimed that in 2016, King Charles was left feeling 'crushed' following a major announcement from his son, the Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle.

According to the royal book Finding Freedom, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry met in July 2016 but did not publicly announce their relationship until four months later. Speculation regarding Prince Harry’s relationship status made headlines after one of his close friends confirmed to a media outlet that the pair had been dating.

At that time, King Charles, who was then the Prince of Wales, was preparing to meet the King of Bahrain during a delicate tour in the Persian Gulf state.

The royal book said the then Prince of Wales team had spent months organising the tour, hoping that his visit would be "covered significantly" by the global media.

The book claimed that Charles was reportedly "crushed" when Harry and Meghan publicly confirmed their relationship, as he thought the announcement would overshadow his tour. The royal book claimed that Harry gave his father just 20 minutes' notice before confirming his relationship with Meghan in the media.

"It was a critical moment that had been in the works for months. A statement from Kensington Palace condemning the Press and, in the same breath, confirming Harry's new girlfriend would all but eliminate coverage of Prince Charles's tour of the Gulf," the Mirror quoted a para from the book.

"The team at Clarence House, which had spent months putting together Prince Charles' tour in the hopes that it would be covered significantly, was crushed," Royal authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand claimed in the book.

However, the book further claimed that Charles "understood that the situation with Meghan had reached a tipping point" despite being "disappointed" by the timing of his son's statement.