'Didn't have to be this way': Sad claim about Harry and Meghan's exit from royal life

Prince Harry is living the life he always craved away from the spotlight that comes with being a member of the British royal family, according to an expert.

But while Harry is finally happy after escaping the 'toxic institution' he was born into, Katie Nicholl believes that had "Harry and Meghan done things differently" and not "pulled that trigger so quickly," they could have moved to America without alienating the royal family.

Nicholl, a journalist and author who has been the royal correspondent for Vanity Fair since 2010, made the comments during the podcast Dynasty: The Royal Family's Most Challenging Year, which she co-hosts with Erin Vanderhoof.

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During a recent episode entitled The Truth About Meghan, Harry, and Their California Dream, the pair talked about Harry and Meghan's controversial decision to step away from royal duties in 2020.

"I think there was a way of him being able to move to America, [and] have had a different life without having fallen out with his entire family," Nicholl said.

"And so when I reflect on the past four years, I do so with a deal of sadness because I think it didn't have to play out this way.

"He feels like he has left behind a very toxic institution and he's living this sort of far freer life that he's always wanted to live."

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Nicholl, who wrote the 2010 book, William and Harry, said Harry's withdrawal from the royal fishbowl was a long time coming.

"Having known Harry for as long as I've known him, I think he has always wanted a different life, and I think Meghan was the perfect catalyst for him," Nicholl said.

However, she said it was Harry, not Meghan, who ultimately decided to make the move. She said suggestions she somehow orchestrated the plan were not true.

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"Meghan was just a gorgeous girl who he fell in love with, who gave him a ticket out of something that had been making him unhappy for a very long time," Nicholl said.

She said the move to Montecito gave Harry something he had long craved: privacy.

"Probably the big draw, certainly for Harry, having grown up his entire life in the spotlight, is the privacy he has," Nicholl said.

"I mean, how many pap shots do we see of those children being taken to kindergarten or to school? You just don't see it.

"And, you know, the conversations that I've had with Harry over the years, the one thing he's always said... he wants to be normal.

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"One of the things he once said to me was how he wished he could take the Tube."

But Harry's decision to step down from the royal family and relocate to the US has come at great cost. Not only is he estranged from his family but he has also lost a number of long-standing friends.

"I think the ties have been a little severed. I mean, you know, Harry used to be really popular over there, and in the States as well, and counted the Beckhams as close friends. I think that friendship is not so strong anymore."

Nicholl said anyone who was a mutual friend of Prince William was asked to make a choice amid their fallout.

"I remember being told by someone at the palace there was this sense that you had to put your stake in one camp or the other."

She said the recent society wedding of the Duke of Westminster was one such example.

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"It was William who got the invite to that. [Harry] was invited because they've been friends forever and a day. But he was basically asked to sort of stand down from that wedding because it would be very awkward to have had the two brothers at a society wedding like that together," she said.

"So I think they probably have lost some friends in all of this."

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