The Archbishop of Canterbury has described being a royal as like a “life sentence without parole”.
Justin Welby – who married the Duke and Duchess of Sussex – thinks it must be tough to be a member of the royal family as the British public and the wider world expect them to be “superhuman”.
Speaking about royal life, he told the Financial Times: “It’s life without parole, isn’t it? … If you go back to the 1930s [and] Edward VIII — he was still a celeb and followed everywhere once he’d abdicated … We expect them to be superhuman.”
His comments come after Duchess Meghan claimed her and Prince Harry got married “three days before [their] wedding” at Windsor Castle in 2018, but it was later confirmed that was not correct.
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey in the tell-all interview, she explained: “Three days before our wedding, we got married. No-one knows that. We called the Archbishop and we said ‘Look, this thing, this spectacle is for the world, but we want our union between us’. So the vows that we have in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury … I’ve thought about this a lot because it was like having an out of body experience I was very present for. That’s the only way I can describe it because the night before I slept through the night entirely, which in and of itself is a bit of a miracle. And then woke up and started listening to that song ‘Going to the Chapel.'”
The Archbishop of Canterbury later confirmed the televised nuptials was the couple’s “legal wedding”.
He said: “If any of you ever talk to a priest, you expect them to keep that talk confidential. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to. I had a number of private and pastoral meetings with the Duke and Duchess before the wedding.
“The legal wedding was on the Saturday. I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offence if I signed it knowing it was false. So you can make what you like about. But the legal wedding was on the Saturday. But I won’t say what happened at any other meetings.”