Meghan Markle is set to make her first official visit to Europe since she and Prince Harry stepped down as senior members of the royal family.
The Duchess of Sussex will accompany her husband to the Netherlands for the 2022 Invictus Games next week, marking the couple’s first public international trip together since moving to California in March 2022.
A spokesperson for the Sussexes told Town & Country Magazine that Meghan will join Harry for the “first few days” of the week-long competition.
The couple stepped down from their public duties as working royals in January 2020, and moved to California with their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, two months later.
A year after moving to the US, the Sussexes gave a bombshell interview to Oprah Winfrey, in which Meghan said she experienced racism and thought of suicide while living with the royal family.
On 6 June 2021, the couple announced the birth of their second child, daughter Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.
This year’s Invictus Games, which were founded by Harry in 2014, will be held in The Hague from 16 to 22 April after being delayed from 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Duke and Duchess have regularly attended events for the Invictus Games together in the past. The event this year is the focus of their first Netflix docuseries, Heart of Invictus, which will “spotlight a group of extraordinary Invictus Games competitors from around the world - members of the military community who have experienced life-changing injuries or illnesses”.
According to the couple’s Archewell website, Heart of Invictus is the first product of Archewell Productions, in partnership with The Invictus Games Foundation.
Harry and Meghan’s last public appearance together was in February, when they attended the 2022 NAACP Image Awards and received the NAACP President’s Award.
Speaking as chief impact officer at mental health firm BetterUp, which announced it is teaming up with the Invictus Games Foundation, the Duke said on Tuesday that the mind is “like a muscle” that needs to be “honed, trained, rehabbed and coached”.
He said: “At its heart, the Invictus Games is about empowering every single person around the world. It’s a worldwide display of resilience, determination, and community for which each of us can draw inspiration.
“I couldn’t think of a better new partner for the Invictus Games Foundation than the mental fitness platform BetterUp. The mind is like a muscle: it needs to be honed, trained, rehabbed, and coached.
“The men and women I served with understand this, the Invictus community knows this, and now the world is beginning to see it too.”
The Independent has contacted the Sussexes’ representative for comment.
