There are glittering guest lists – and there’s the kind that adorned Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding, almost exactly eight years ago this weekend, on May 19, 2018.
In addition to co-stars from Meghan’s TV series, Suits, and her bridesmaid and best friend, stylist and influencer Jessica Mulroney, figures such as Oprah Winfrey, George and Amal Clooney, David and Victoria Beckham, Serena Williams and actor Idris Elba mixed with royals and aristocrats.
However, I can reveal there have since been some steep fallings-away between the Sussexes and those same A-list friends who attended St George’s Chapel, Windsor, that day.
For much like the schism that has developed between the couple and the Hollywood elite – as I described two weeks ago, Meghan and Harry have fallen out with so many showbiz power-players it’s said they have ‘no bridges left to burn’ – a significant number of the Sussexes’ high-status friends have now also removed themselves from their orbit.
Not that Harry and Meghan believe that this could possibly be their fault. ‘They don’t get it. They never think it is them,’ one associate of theirs tells me.
So, where once there was a warm connection between the couple and those powerful friends in the pews, there is now, if not outright froideur, a puzzling distance.
My source tells me: ‘They love famous people – they are very name-droppy. The association gives them a kick. But if someone stops calling they don’t ask why.’
Over time, of course, some friendships naturally peter out, particularly if you change continents as the Sussexes did following Megxit in 2020.

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Harry and Meghan have fallen out with many showbiz power-players, and now, Alison Boshoff reveals, there have been similar fallings-out with the A-list friends who attended their wedding

But this appears far more than naturally just losing touch.
Arguably the most powerful guest at the wedding in Windsor, in a rose pink Stella McCartney dress, was Oprah.
She professed herself in awe on the day. ‘I can’t wait to see the goodness that will come from their union,’ she wrote in her Oprah magazine. ‘Goodness that I know for sure will help change the way the world thinks about what is possible, even more than it already has.’
People were at a loss as to how she knew the couple. It later emerged she had not actually met Meghan before the wedding – but had invited Meghan’s mother Doria over for lunch at her Montecito house, followed by kumquats in the garden and a yoga session.
Commentators immediately speculated that Oprah had already launched a charm offensive hoping to secure a big exclusive with the pair – and so it proved in March 2021 with her bombshell two-hour interview; Meghan pregnant and wiping away tears as she talked about how living in the Royal Family had caused her to become distressed to a suicidal degree, Oprah brimful of sympathy.
Today, though, things are rather chillier. While Meghan has ‘definitely been to Oprah’s house’, I am told by a source ‘they are not as close as they once were’.
Indeed, the relationship appears to be existing on a hair’s breadth for one reason, as well-connected broadcaster and former Page Six columnist Paula Froelich, of NewsNation, tells me. ‘The truth is Oprah has been long-arming the Sussexes for some time,’ she says. ‘She can’t let them drift too far away because if something happens – one of the three big Ds, divorce, death or drama – she will want the interview. But she is not actually friends with them.’
Froelich also believes long-term alignment with Brand Sussex carries a reputational risk, hence former celebrity friends distancing themselves. ‘No one wants to hang out with Meghan.
‘Lots of reasons, but she might sell clothes while using their name,’ she says, referring to Meghan’s latest business wheeze where she promotes her outfits through a fashion app that gives her a 10 per cent cut of the sales generated. Can you imagine? “What to wear to visit Oprah,”’ Froelich adds, with a shudder.
Indeed, a distance had already emerged, quite deliberately on Oprah’s part.

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Arguably the most powerful wedding guest, in a pink Stella McCartney dress, was Oprah. But her relationship with Harry and Meghan today is reportedly ‘chillier’ than it was back then

As Froelich says: ‘Oprah was tarnished by her association with them. The interview she did in 2021 was so soft and she didn’t push back on anything said, so she was seen as a sycophant rather than a great interviewer.’
Certainly, Oprah seemed keen to disassociate herself from the family drama, which she was asked about repeatedly in the months following the interview. She took particular offence at the description of the interview as ‘bombshell’.
There were other indications of a rupture setting in. Asked about the Sussexes and their estrangement from the royals in September 2022, after the death of the Queen, she said: ‘I think in all families – you know, my father passed recently, this summer – and when all families come together for a common ceremony, the ritual of, you know, burying your dead, there’s an opportunity for peacemaking. Hopefully, there will be that.’ My source is blunt about Oprah’s dissension with the Sussexes.
‘The bottom line is Oprah only likes people when they have something to offer her. Honestly, I think she might be worse than they are for that.’
A cynical view, perhaps, but Oprah is oddly absent in Harry and Meghan’s lives after 2021, just when you might imagine she would weigh in to help friends starting a new life.
For example, did Oprah lend her immense clout to Meghan’s Netflix show With Love, Meghan, filmed in 2024? She did not.
Instead, Meghan had to make do with a largely obscure crop of guests to chat and cook for, which included people she plainly barely knew such as comedian Mindy Kaling (who was chided: ‘It’s Sussex now’ when she called the Duchess ‘Meghan Markle’).
Did Oprah feature Meghan’s children’s book The Bench in her book club – which has a million followers on Instagram? Again no, and it would have been a useful boost.
But on her personal Instagram account – where she has 22million followers – Oprah shows lots of love for entrepreneur Emma Grede and podcaster Jamie Kern Lima, both also in Meghan’s circle, and their books. But there is nothing of the Montecito Two.
The only sign there’s any life in the association came last November when Meghan’s ‘fruit spread gift box’ from her brand As Ever was featured on Oprah’s annual holiday wish list.
Meghan was quoted in Oprah’s newsletter saying: ‘We’re honoured to be included in the season’s quintessential guide to gifting. So much love is poured into each recipe to bring the brightness and warmth of the garden to your home in every season.’
It could hardly sound any more corporate and less like what you might say about a friend.