Harry and Meghan denied ride home from Queen’s funeral on Air Force One

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were denied a request to hitch a ride back to the United States with the Bidens on Air Force One after Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral in September.

The White House worried that such escorting the estranged royals back across the pond would cause a “commotion,” sources told the Daily Mail.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had been on the outs with the royal family following their bombshell 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey when the Queen died at age 96 on Sept. 8.

The couple had been in the United Kingdom for charity events at the time and remained in the country through her funeral on Sept. 19.

However, they were uninvited from a pre-funeral reception at Buckingham Palace, where other royals, including King Charles and Queen Camilla, Prince William and Kate Middleton, were welcomed alongside President Biden and first lady Jill Biden Jill and other world leaders.

The couple were then snubbed at the funeral at Westminster Abbey, seated in the second row behind the rest of the royal family.

In response, Harry and Meghan’s staff reached out to the White House to request if they could get a ride back on Air Force One back to the United States, where they had been living in California since giving up their royal duties in 2020, according to the Daily Mail.

But it was a hard and immediate “no” from the White House with little further discussion.

“It would have caused such a commotion. It would have strained relations with the Palace and the new King,” a source said.

The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for confirmation.

The Bidens can invite whoever they want aboard Air Force One, however, the issue remained of who would pay for Harry and Meghan’s airfare.

Air Force One trips for official government visits — like the Bidens’ trip to London for the Queen’s funeral — are typically paid for by taxpayers.

Others’ trips are typically billed for their rides: Biden pays for his own family to fly on the plane, political parties cover flights to campaign events and news organizations pay for journalists to cover the commander in chief.

Just months earlier, in April 2022, Jill Biden had turned down an invitation from Harry and Meghan to attend the Invictus Games — a multi-sport event for wounded and sick service members launched by Harry in 2014.

The games, held in The Hague in The Netherlands, were the first Harry had hosted since he and Meghan exited the royal family. 

Both Bidens attended the games when they were held in Canada in 2017 and Jill Biden attended the 2016 games in Florida.

Despite the first lady’s desire to accept Harry and Meghan’s invitation and go to the 2022 games, British officials expressed to National Security Council staff that they felt her appearance would look bad, sources told Daily Mail.

By that time, the couple were viewed as individuals with no official state standing, the source said.
Instead, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten attended as the US delegation.