A friend of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has hit back at claims Prince Charles continued to finance the couple with a 'substantial sum' for months after their departure from the Royal Family.
Royal accounts released to the public for the first time on Wednesday seem to show The Duke and Duchess of Sussex being supported by Charles until summer 2020.
This seems to contradict the statements made by Harry to Oprah Winfrey in their explosive interview in March, where the Prince said he had stopped receiving financial support from his family in the "first quarter" of last year.
Harry also claimed that he and his wife Meghan were living off "what my mother had left me".
The financial support from Charles was taken from a £4.4 million Clarence House pot which he used to support his two sons and their families.
The revelation has sparked criticism from the likes of royal commentator Angela Levin, who told Talk Radio today that Harry's previous claim about their finances was a "blatant lie".
However Harry and Meghan's friend and biographer Omid Scobie has tweeted out a clip of the Oprah interview along with more context in an attempt to clarify the situation.
Mr Scobie said: "Despite some confusing reports, Prince Charles and Prince Harry's timelines for the period the Sussexes' financial support ended are the same.
"Clarence House says funding continued until last summer (Q1 of the UK's fiscal year is April to June) and Harry told Oprah the same."
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In the Oprah clip posted on Twitter, Harry says: "We didn't have a plan. That was suggested at the point at where my family literally cut me off financially and I had to afford security for us."
Oprah replies: "Wait, hold up, wait a minute? Your family cut you off?"
To which Harry states: "Yeah, in the first half, the first quarter of 2021. But I've got what my mum left me, and without that we would not have been able to do this."
Independently audited accounts show that Harry and Meghan are still listed to receive money from Charles's Duchy of Cornwall income even though they are no longer working royals.
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A senior Clarence House spokesman said: "As we'll all remember, in January 2020 when the duke and duchess announced that they were going to move away from the working Royal Family, the duke said that they would work towards becoming financially independent."
Representatives for the Sussexes have been approached for comment.
Since their departure from the monarchy, Harry and Meghan have signed multi-million-pound deals with Netflix and Spotify.
Harry told Oprah that he signed the lucrative deals for his family's financial "security" and claimed he only had £7 million to his name, left to him by the late Princess Diana.
Last year the couple bought an £11 million family home in Montecito, California.
The cost of royal travel to the taxpayer heavily decreased in the last year, as like many of us the family were grounded by the pandemic.
Official trip spending fell almost 40% from £5.3 million to £3.2 million.
The most expensive single trip was a £58,993 overnight stay by the Prince of Wales, flying by private jet to pay condolences for the death of the Emir of Kuwait last October.
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