Meghan Markle, the wife of Britain’s Prince Harry, has withdrawn from a planned speech at a European Parliament event on child online safety in Brussels, Belgium, amid controversy surrounding the arrest of her estranged father.
Meghan was scheduled to address the gathering on Tuesday but pulled out of the engagement ahead of the event, marking her first public appearance since her father, Thomas Markle, was charged with possessing child sexual abuse images.
A spokesperson for the couple also disclosed that Harry would not mention the arrest of his father-in-law during the programme, which began shortly after 9 am local time.
The couple arrived in Brussels for the opening of the Lost Screen Memorial, an art installation dedicated to children who died after suffering harm linked to social media.
They were received by delegates and a large group of journalists, who asked Meghan about her state of mind.
However, both dressed in black and declined to comment.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Meghan did not feel “strong enough” to deliver the planned speech.
She had previously expressed concern over the allegations against her father, saying in a statement last month that she was “deeply distressed” by the development.
US authorities charged the 82-year-old Thomas Markle last week after allegedly discovering photographs of himself with naked underage girls in rented storage facilities in California.
He had earlier denied the accusations, describing them as untrue and “sick lies” in an interview with the Daily Mail.
Meghan has been estranged from her father since the period leading up to her 2018 marriage to Harry, the younger son of King Charles III.
In her statement last month, she said she had been aware of the allegations against him since 2018 and had prevented him from having contact with her children, Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, to protect them.
The Lost Screen Memorial was launched in New York last year by the couple through their charitable organisation, Archewell, which they established in 2020 after stepping back from royal duties and relocating to the United States.
Their Brussels visit comes weeks after they appeared together in Nottingham in October, marking their first joint public engagement since their return to Britain.
