The Archbishop of Canterbury shut down Harry and Meghan’s claim that they secretly wed in private prior to their May 19 nuptials at Windsor Castle in 2018.
WATCH: Harry and Meghan accused of attacking the Queen
After the Sussexes dropped the bombshell during their two-hour chat with Oprah Winfrey, Reverend Justin Welby came forward and denied the allegation.
Speaking to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Mr Welby stated he had several meetings with the Sussexes ahead of their wedding, which was officiated on Saturday, May 19.
“I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offence if I signed it knowing it was false,” Mr Welby told the publication, confirming the actual date.
In the wake of the wedding claims, the Archbishop has come forward again and seemingly dropped another bombshell, while chatting with British publication The Financial Times.
While referring to the Sussexes’ recent departure from royal life, the Archbishop empathised with Harry, who he said will probably always remain in the public eye.
The religious leader even compared Harry and Meghan’s departure to the abdication of King Edward VIII, when he quit the royal family for Wallace Simpson in 1936.
“It’s life without parole, isn’t it?” Mr Welby told the publication, referring to the public’s expectation of royals being “superhuman” – whether they are working on not.
“If you go back to the 1930s, Edward VIII — he was still a celeb and followed everywhere once he’d abdicated,” he said.
The Archbishop previously addressed the “life sentence” of being royal, while chatting about the Duchess of Sussex in 2019, MailOnline reported.
“They (the royal family) are born into it and one of the things, with the great privilege of meeting some of them, that I’m most aware of is their sheer sense of duty and commitment, which means they know this is a life sentence,” Mr Welby stated
“Even if they decided to withdraw from public life and never take any money and disappear, they would still be pursued because they’d be the ex-you know Duke of Rock or whatever,” he stated.
“It is genuinely a life sentence,” he said.
