Why Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Neighbours are 'Avoiding' Them? Pair's California Reputation Allegedly Slump

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are being quietly avoided by some neighbours in Montecito, California, according to claims aired this week by US royal commentator Kinsey Schofield, who said the couple's local standing has soured in the enclave they have called home since 2020.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved to Montecito five years ago and now live in a multi million-pound home with their children, six-year-old Prince Archie and four-year-old Princess Lilibet, with no reported plans to leave. Yet the latest account of life around them is sharply divided, with one telling painting them as socially frozen out and another insisting their relationship with the community remains strong.

Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Face A Familiar Problem

Schofield's account, given to Sky News Australia, was blunt. She said 'some of the neighbours say they don't hate them, they just avoid them,' before going further and arguing that people in their orbit see the pair as 'takers' whose relationships feel one-sided.

That is the claim now doing the rounds, and it is an ugly one because it goes beyond ordinary celebrity irritation and turns into a judgement about character. It also rests on reported neighbour sentiment rather than anything independently verified, which matters here because the allegation is not a matter of public record but of reputation, hearsay and private grievance.

Schofield alleged that the resentment stems from accusations that the couple have asked to borrow holiday homes and private jets, and suggested that some locals have grown tired of what she described as an imbalance in those relationships.

Those claims are serious enough to travel quickly, especially around a couple whose public life has long drawn scrutiny, but they remain allegations and should be treated with caution because the source material offers no direct evidence beyond attributed remarks.

There is a certain weariness to the whole story. Montecito is the sort of wealthy pocket where privacy is prized, status is managed discreetly and social acceptance often runs on signals no outsider can properly measure. The suggestion that 'no one wants to be seen with them' sounds definitive, but it is also the kind of sweeping line that tends to arrive in celebrity coverage long before proof does.

Meghan Markle And Prince Harry Get A Different Version From Their Side

That is where the counter narrative becomes important. Page Six, cited in the same report, carried a sharply different account from a source described as close to the Sussexes, who said Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have a 'great relationship' with the people living near them.

The contrast is hard to miss. On one side sits a story of neighbours keeping their distance, exhaustion and social frost. On the other is a cleaner, calmer picture of a couple settled in place, surrounded by friends including Oprah Winfrey, with their children enrolled at schools near home and everyday life continuing much as planned.

Still, one detail is consistent across the competing versions. There is no sign, at least in this report, that the couple intend to move out of Montecito.

And perhaps that is the most telling part. Whatever the truth of the neighbourly mood, Meghan and Harry appear rooted where they are. They moved to California with Archie when he was still less than a year old, and they welcomed Lilibet in June 2021 after beginning that new life in the United States.