I Think I Know Why Harry and Meghan Are Leaving America

On Wednesday, the news broke that Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and her husband, Prince Harry, are packing up the kids and moving back to the United Kingdom.

While the news came as a shock to ... the people who work in the news, it didn't surprise me very much once I sat there and thought about it.

Why, oh why, would a biracial Black woman with a working uterus want to flee America? Maybe because the country has one foot on The Handmaid's Tale and another foot on a banana peel.

From People:

While the couple appeared to have an idyllic life in Montecito, they have made no secret of their disillusionment with the current White House. With the midterm elections fast approaching, concerns about the direction of the U.S. loom large for many.

There has been public tension between the Sussexes and Trump in the past. When President Donald Trump said in January 2026 that NATO allies “stayed a little back” from the frontlines during the war in Afghanistan, Harry — a combat vet from the Afghanistan War — issued a blunt statement: “I served there. I made lifelong friends there. And I lost friends there.” (For his part, Trump said of Meghan in May, “Boy, what she’s done to that guy [Harry],” in remarks to royal biographer Robert Hardman.)

Things in the United States are bad. They are bad for women. They are bad for immigrants. They are bad for Black people. They are bad for young people. They are bad for families. They are bad for working people. They are bad for the poor. They are bad for queer people. They are bad for anyone who is not a wealthy, white, Christian (preferably Protestant) male.

Things are bad, yo.

Gary, Ind., still has no power. Mainstream journalism is the living dead. Haitian immigrants who came here legally are being hounded and rounded up. Our institutions and norms are dying. Black people are dying in mysterious ways. The Department of Justice is more punitive, corrupt, morally bankrupt, and petty than it was under J. Edgar Hoover. You can't eat anything. You can't afford a home, but depending on where you live, you also can't sell a home. Our infrastructure is old and collapsing. There's a never-ending war in the Middle East that we started for even more dubious reasons than usual. Our military is mismanaged, stressed beyond capacity, and on the brink of disaster. AI ate your resume. Nobody can find a job. Grifters are grifting. And our national debt just hit $40 trillion.

Harry and Meghan are not necessarily "safe" in the UK, where they're hounded by the press and hated by racists, but they are safer there than in the United States. This isn't saying much, considering they change prime ministers like underwear, but the UK is politically more stable. Better to get out now while you can than wait around and see how our Midterms go. Because why stay here for whatever mess is about to go down in November? There are no signs that it will be fair, easy, or peaceful. And if it goes bad, the Sussexes will be safely ensconced away in Great Britain.

When I first left HuffPost in January 2025, my initial thought was "why not leave?" One of my closest friends moved to Mexico shortly after the inauguration. What was I doing here? But I didn't leave, primarily because of my family, but also because I had to accept that I do love what it is to be a Black American, and if I leave America, there is a chance I would never come back as long as it's in this current state. I wouldn't just be saying goodbye to friends and family; I would be saying goodbye to everything that made me who I am.

In the Lee Daniels-produced Broadway play Ain't No Mo', written by Jordan Cooper, the plot centers around every Black person leaving America. In the play, many do this without incident, but at the very end, we try to take our essence with us, named "Miss Bag" in the play, and it won't go. Meaning, if we leave, our children will be the children of wherever we move to — they won't be Black Americans. They won't grow up ensconced in our vernacular, trauma, joy, history, traditions, or culture. If we flee to France, they will be French. If we flee to Ghana, they will be Ghanaian. Even if we teach them their history. Even if we try really hard to hold on to our memories, they will eventually fade away because our children will want to be of wherever they are from.

We have built an incredible life and culture in a place where we weren't loved or wanted. So I guess I chose to stay and fight for it.

Great. Hope I don't die!

But Harry and Meghan have options. She married a Brit. Her kids are half-British. They are, technically, part of the royal family by marriage and blood, even if they're not "working royals," or whatever that means. As awful as the press or the royal watchers might be, it won't be as awful as what's happening here. Plus, the children will still get to grow up and be raised in Harry's culture.

Just not Meghan's.