Prince Harry’s 40th birthday: rudderless, shaken, but with an inheritance on the horizon

On Sunday, September 15, Prince Harry will have his cake and blow out the candles to celebrate his 40th birthday. Those will be about the only similarities between the date and the party he had 10 years ago. It’s even unlikely that the cake itself, which in 2014 was a UK-standard Eton mess — sponge cake, strawberries and meringue — will be quite the same. Neither will the setting, which will forgo the gray British sky for sunny California’s blue expanse. The royal family won’t be there, and that includes his brother William, his sister-in-law Kate and her sister Pippa, who organized Harry’s fête 10 years ago. This time, he’ll be joined by friends, his two sons and wife Meghan Markle, a name that, 10 years ago, was unknown to the British royal family from which Harry hails. A decade later, that family has split apart.

Nowadays, everything is different in Harry’s life, and has been for the past five years. When his grandmother Queen Elizabeth declined to accept his proposal to live part-time as a civilian while remaining a royal, he decided to strike out on his own, leaving life as he knew it behind. Harry not only left his family, as a mere mortal might have done, but also an institution, its rules, a country and a career. A lifestyle, one might say. Now, entering his fifth decade, he’s still a prince (and always will be), but one without a kingdom. Spotify has dispensed with his services, after being disappointed with the work of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (“fucking grifters,” one of the platform’s executives called them on a podcast.) No new books have been announced. His workload as chief impact officer of the BetterUp start-up is “zero”. The lifestyle brand that Markle announced five months ago has yet to release a single product or trademark its name with the U.S. Patent Office. Even their Archewell Foundation was found “delinquent” due to administrative error this spring (it is now considered “in good standing”.)

Besides Invictus Games, Harry’s beloved philanthropic initiative held every two years that he founded a decade ago, his most important and lucrative project is his Netflix contract. His first, much-awaited autobiographic series has been their biggest hit; they’ve released two additional projects (one about world leaders and the other, about Invictus) to a lukewarm reception. This week, the platform decreed the December release of Polo, a documentary created by Harry about its titular sport, one of his favorites. A Markle-led cooking program is also in the works, though it has yet to receive a release date. Their contract ends next year. None of the involved parties have made a public statement as to what will happen at that point. According to unconfirmed sources, the couple’s contract totaled some $100 million, suggesting that its loss would be a considerable financial setback. But there is economic hope on the horizon: though Henry already received his parts of his mother’s inheritance in 2009 and 2014, he’s now due part of his grandmother’s estate. According to the British press, the Queen left money to be given to her grandson when he turned 21 years old (at which point he received $7.9 million) and then again when he turns 40. She left him more than William (who came into his inheritance two years ago), knowing that the elder brother would become the Duke of Cornwall, a title that brings with it a comfortable annual salary. Harry’s birthday check, according to The Mirror and The Daily Mail, will be for more than $10.5 million, enough to allow some time to think about his future.

That future, as one of the prince’s former aides put it in an article in The Times featuring several of his acquaintances, is “a bit woolly.” “I always thought he wanted more from life,” the aide told the British publication. “I can’t help but think he must be wondering, ‘Where do I go from here?’” The fifth in line to the British throne recently took a trip — a pseudo-official journey lacking any concrete goal — to Colombia. At the end of September, he’ll participate in parallel activities during the UN General Assembly, giving a talk organized by the Bill Clinton Foundation alongside Matt Damon and chef José Andrés. Random gigs. It seems as though the prince lacks a primary objective, a task. His projects have been ephemeral and haven’t followed a clear line for any considerable amount of time. He is devoted to his children, six-year-old Archie and three-year-old Lilibet, but Harry himself admitted in his documentary that he misses the UK and his lifelong friends. He has no relationship with his father, whom he visited for a brief 45-minute meeting on a whirlwind 24-hour trip to London when Charles announced his cancer diagnosis. He does not speak to Prince William, the throne’s heir apparent. According to the British press, his messages asking to the health of Princess Kate went unanswered. In his interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby a year and a half ago, Harry confessed, “I want my father and brother back. They’ve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile.”

William, perhaps, feels the most wounded by Harry; and this year, he has bigger worries than his relationship with his brother. As lamented in Harry’s memoir, the life of the youngest son of King Charles III and the deceased Diana of Wales was always that of the spare (as his polemic autobiography was titled.) This was his blessing and his curse. He was allowed to do as he liked, and so he did for many years. Early on, he spent his time with girlfriends, parties, marijuana and doubts. As the years went by, the duties of his title became more concrete: trips to his beloved Africa, the creation of projects like Invictus and the promotion of his interests to his family and country, which at the end of the day were one and the same. Like so many other secondary members of royal families in the 21st century, his was not an easy line to walk, but it was manageable once he seemed to get used to it. Only, it turned out that he was never truly at ease with the position and wound up biting the hand that fed him in a way that caused pain for many in closest circles. His interview with Oprah Winfrey, his series and above all, his memoir, proved to be too much for the king and particularly, the king’s heir, with whom Harry has had no communication for two years, since the death of their grandmother.

Harry has also lost many of his friends, who had formed the backbone of his support system. He’s acknowledged as much, and so have they. In the article published by The Times, they say they don’t understand him, they see him as lost and far-away, beset by a constant nostalgia that has left him fixated on the past. Nor do they understand the interviews, books and reports they see as a betrayal. “The problem for the king and other members of the family is the worry that if they have a chat with Harry, it will appear in Spare volume two. How do you regain the trust? I don’t think Harry ever can,” said one of the king’s close friends, who thinks that Charles could forgive him, but not the other members of the family. In addition, there’s the fact that Harry is waging a judicial war to get the UK to pay for his security, a battle against his father’s government, which may not incline the king towards seeing his side of things.

California is the couple’s last refuge, a place where they are closer to being average citizens than Hollywood stars. They are not the subject of conversation in Santa Barbara (the county in which their town, Montesito, is located) and even less so in Los Angeles, where no one seems to remember them. They don’t attend L.A. parties, meetings or events. Their names are only heard when they’re looking for new publicists, something that occurs frequently because people don’t tend to last long in the position. Their last chief of staff, Josh Kettler, held the job for just three months. In fact, some former employees call themselves the “Sussex Survivors Club,” as documented by The Hollywood Reporter. All Harry has is Montesito, a refuge far from his wars against the British government, the tabloids, his family and the world itself. He’s seen at bookstore events, riding bikes with the kids and going out with new friends for mountain hikes. “I was anxious about 30, I’m excited about 40,” he said in a statement that he sent to the BBC last Friday. “Whatever the age, my mission is to continue showing up and doing good in the world,” he added. He may be a prince without a kingdom, perhaps without even a concrete objective, but at least he has candles to blow out.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition