Meghan Markle faces cold reality while Harry heads to court

Meghan Markle’s standing with the British public has sunk to its lowest point yet. 

Fresh YouGov polling paints a stark picture for the Duchess of Sussex just as talk of a UK return begins to circulate.

The latest Royal Family tracker released on 16 January, shows that only 19 per cent of people in UK now view the Duchess positively, the weakest result she has recorded since YouGov began monitoring royal popularity. 

At the same time, negative views have climbed to 66 per cent, meaning roughly two in three respondents see her unfavourably.

Meghan is widely expected to travel to Birmingham this summer for an Invictus Games celebration that would mark her first appearance in the UK in four years and serve as a countdown event ahead of the 2027 Invictus Games. 

Whether Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet would accompany their parents remains unclear.

Online reaction to the poll has been blunt. Some commenters described the figures as “unsurprising”, while others argued the Duchess has simply “lost the British audience.”

The legal showdown comes at an especially awkward moment for the Duke of Sussex. 

On the same day Prince Harry is expected to be in a London courtroom, his brother, the Prince of Wales, will be more than 120 miles away carrying out royal engagements.