Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were greeted with boos as the couple was leaving the Platinum Jubilee Church Service at St. Paul's Cathedral on Friday morning.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended Queen Elizabeth II's Service of Thanksgiving, an event included in Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee. The service is one among many events that began on June 2 and will end on June 5 as Britain celebrates 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign, Fox News reported.
During the service Harry, 37, and Markle, 40, were spotted sitting opposite sides of his brother, Prince William, 39, and sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, 40, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Their 'relegated' seats were a telling sign of their changed status.
Prince Harry and Markle were photographed seated in the second row, next to his cousins Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice and their husbands.
"It was very, very frosty inside the church. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. The brothers didn't make eye contact at all," royal expert Russell Myers told Sunrise, an Australian breakfast show program.
Commenting on the seating arrangement, he mentioned later that there was no place for Harry and Meghan in the front row as the chairs were all occupied by working royals.
"At the moment, it does not look likely that Harry and Meghan and William and Kate will meet up separately during the Jubilee celebrations," one palace insider told Page Six. "There is certainly nothing in the diary at the moment."
The pair was personally escorted by the Queen's Senior Gentleman Usher, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Alexander Matheson of Matheson when they proceeded for a solo procession, the Daily Express reported. While descending the steps of the Cathedral, before the Cambridges and Prince Charles, the couple received boos from the public gathered outside the church.
As per the Mirror reports, Harry and Meghan also skipped the royal luncheon after the service.
The Jubilee celebrations are the first public appearances of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after their dramatic exit from the royal family in 2020.
According to a statement from the Buckingham Palace, the Queen had not attended the Service of Thanksgiving because of "some discomfort" she experienced on Thursday.
