Prince Harry’s former friend Jack Whitehall reveals he was among the pals dropped by the Duke post Megxit – after Meghan Markle claimed men’s ‘buddies always blame the girl’

Jack Whitehall has revealed how he was ‘dropped’ as a friend by Prince Harry after the royal settled down with his now-wife Meghan Markle.

The 36-year-old comedian, who is in Australia touring his latest comedy show Jack and Michael Whitehall Live, appeared on Melbourne breakfast radio Nova 100’s Jase & Lauren on Monday, where he revealed he used to be pals with the prince, who now lives in Montecito, ‘pre-Meghan’. 

Jack is not the only friend who is said to have been dropped by the Duke of Sussex, 40, following his departure from his royal duties. According to reports, the prince has allegedly dropped a number of friends since his relationship with Meghan, 43, became serious, from David Beckham to old friends like Hugh van Cutsem.

Among them is also his former close pal and ‘wingman’ Tom ‘Skippy’ Inskip, with insiders reporting in 2018 that the Duke had frozen out some of his ‘old posse’ as Meghan didn’t want any ‘temptations’ as they prepared to start a family, in case they were a ‘bad influence’.

Speaking about how people had accused her of ‘changing’ Harry while speaking in the 2022 Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, the Duchess said: ‘I often think about in any relationship, oftentimes, when a guy falls in love with a girl, his buddies are like, “Oh, my God, he changed. I don’t see him anymore. He’s always with her”. 

‘You blame the girl. They’re angry with her because she’s the thing that took him away. And that’s whether you’re in a small town or a big city or in the royal family. He wouldn’t have ever been attracted to or interested in me if he hadn’t already been on his own path. 

‘You most people need to find someone to blame, to try to like, reconcile how you’re feeling because something’s changed and it doesn’t feel good and you don’t like it, and what’s the thing that’s different, what’s all changed when you got here? So it’s your fault.’

Here, FEMAIL reveals the friends Prince Harry has dropped following his relationship to Meghan Markle and departure from the Royal Family…

Jack Whitehall

Speaking to Nova 100’s Jase & Lauren on Monday, Jack said: ‘I was quite good friends with Prince Harry back in the day, pre-Meghan when he was a tearaway’.

Lauren Phillips swiftly asked him if he was ‘dropped’ by the now-estranged royal after marrying the former Suits star. Jack noted: ‘Yeah I mean I wasn’t part of his inner circle… but I had a few nights out with him when he was quite fun.’

The father-of-one made sure to mention that, like Harry, he has also ‘retired’ from his wild party days.  He joked: ‘There’s still a demon inside me…there [is] definitely a little bit more negotiating and [I’ve] cashed out at the bank of mutual resentment. I just sent my wife away for a girls’ weekend — I’m like, ‘Take two nights babe,’ ‘Cause I know there’s a potential boys’ weekend coming up.’

Jack and Prince Harry had been spotted hanging out over the years and were even snapped at the Royal Variety Performance at London’s Albert Hall in 2015. Jack also quipped he wasn’t invited to Prince Harry’s wedding because of a joke he made at the Royal Variety Show in 2015.

During Jack’s How To Survive The Summer Holidays tour, his father Michael said: ‘That is your friend Harry. Except you are not allowed to see him anymore. You have been banned… ostracised from the Sussexes.’

Jack said: ‘I think I have been banned because I called him ‘Ginger Nuts’ at the Royal Variety.’

In his 2015 set, Jack joked that he will ‘offer up his services as royal wingman’ because Prince Harry was single at the time. However he started dating Meghan a year later and the pair eventually got married in 2018.

Tom ‘Skippy’ Inskip 

Of the friends Prince Harry has reportedly dropped from his inner circle, one of the most significant is his close pal and former ‘wingman’ Tom ‘Skippy’ Inskip.

The two were so close that Harry was was an usher at Tom’s wedding in Jamaica in 2017.  

Speaking to the Express in 2018, a friend said: ‘Like several others who were considered a questionable influence on Harry during his bad old bachelor days, Tom has been dropped, even though he himself now has a lovely wife, Lara.’

The source added: ‘It’s all part of Meghan’s quiet airbrushing out of Harry’s old posse. She doesn’t want temptation – of any sort – being put in his way while they concentrate on starting a family.

Tom, who is a banker, was one of Harry’s childhood friends from Eton, and was considered to be his ‘wingman’. He was with Harry during his infamous trip to Las Vegas in 2012, when the prince was photographed naked during a game of ‘strip billiards’.

Tom also partied with Harry during a trip to Croatia the previous year, when they were photographed jumping into a pool fully-clothed at a nightclub.

It has been claimed that Inskip suggested to Harry that he should take his time when it came to his relationship with Meghan, causing tension. 

David Beckham

It is believed that former England footballer David Beckham, and his wife Victoria, once had a friendship with Harry and Meghan.

But the celebrated athlete is now thought to be enjoying a deepening relationship with The Firm following his spectacular falling out with Prince Harry and Meghan over rumours of a ‘leaking’ spat dating back to 2018. 

David was once so close to Harry that he and his wife, Victoria, 50, were among the guests when the prince married Meghan Markle at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 2018, though they were not invited to the evening reception.

The Beckhams, who have a combined fortune estimated at £455million, made a very generous gesture in the run-up to the Sussexes’ big day.

When Meghan returned to her native Los Angeles to find paparazzi camped outside her mother’s home, the Beckhams offered the former actress the use of their six-bedroom, Italian-style villa in the city, where she was waited on by their staff.

And after Meghan moved into Kensington Palace, Victoria, whose fashion label was expanding into beauty products, gave her advice on make-up and a member of her staff provided her with help on facials and hairdressing. Free of charge, of course.

When news of the Beckhams’ generosity made the Press, however, Meghan was said to be outraged. The Beckhams denied that they had leaked any information but the reportedly hyper-sensitive Harry and Meghan became distrustful of them.

The Mail on Sunday was told in July 2023 that the accusation of leaking left David ‘absolutely bloody furious’.

Despite not being invited to the royal couple’s wedding reception, which was seen by some as a snub, later that year (2018), David agreed to Harry’s request to fly to Australia, where he was hosting the Invictus Games, his celebrated competition for injured servicemen and women.

He made the arduous 22-hour journey from London to Sydney only to discover that the duke would not see him or even be pictured with him.

The reason, according to distinguished biographer Tom Bower, was Meghan. ‘She wanted no competition in the media from David,’ he wrote in his book, Revenge.

‘It seemed she was not prepared to tolerate anything flattering regarding the Beckhams and the Games to appear in the media.’

Regardless, the Beckhams seemingly tried to maintain a relationship with Harry and Meghan.

The couples were neighbours in Oxfordshire after the Beckhams built a home there and Harry rented a converted barn.

The biographer claims that while the men ‘occasionally met at weekends’, Meghan had already ‘put on airs’.

But when Harry and Meghan prepared to make their move to California and step away from royal life, the Beckhams refused to take sides in the row between them and Prince William and his wife Kate. 

Beckham had previously got to know Prince William when they both played an important part in the bid for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Although the bid was unsuccessful, the pair stayed in touch.

Mr Bower claimed their friendship ‘annoyed the Sussexes’.

Further evidence of the growing distance between the couples was seen when Meghan and Harry were not guests at the wedding of the Beckhams’ son Brooklyn to US heiress Nicola Peltz in April 2022.

The Sussexes alleged distaste towards the Beckham’s friendship with the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge was furthered in 2023 when David flew from Qatar to Boston during the World Cup to help William and Kate with their philanthropic efforts.

Hugh Van Cutsem 

Hugh van Cutsem has known Prince Harry and William all their lives, but seems to have grown further and further apart from the Duke of Sussex in recent years – even appearing on the show of Harry and Meghan’s nemesis Jeremy Clarkson in 2024

Clarkson once wrote a notorious opinion piece about Meghan, in which he said he hated the Duchess of Sussex on ‘a cellular level’ and wanted to see her paraded through the streets naked while people threw excrement at her – a reference to a scene from TV show Game of Thrones. 

But the rift appears to go further back than that, appearing to have started in 2020, when Hugh’s wife Rosie Astor – who he married in 2005 – offended Harry and Meghan by seemingly mocking their announcement that they intend to ‘step back’ as senior members of the Royal Family in 2020.

‘I am standing back as a senior member of my tax return,’ Rose wrote on social media, ‘because I’d rather drink coffee, see my friends, love my family and do yoga.’

She later declined to discuss her comments, explaining: ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t say anything. I’m sure you understand. I’m going to be in so much trouble.’

Hugh is particularly close to Prince William, with the royal being a senior usher at Hugh and Rose’s wedding in 2005. William is also the godfather to the couple’s daughter Grace, who was a bridesmaid at William and Catherine’s wedding in 2011.

Grace became known as the little girl who covered her ears on the Buckingham Palace balcony because of the noise of the cheering crowds as the newlyweds kissed.

Hugh and Rose had Meghan and Harry over to dinner at their house in West London after she moved to the UK from America, and also attended the royal couple’s wedding in 2018.

Harry confirmed his rift with the Van Cutsems in his 2023 memoir, Spare, revealing that Hugh’s mother, Emilie, and one of her four sons had contacted him to voice their fury after his explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey. 

The Duke wrote: ‘Several close mates and beloved figures in my life, including one of Hugh and Emilie’s sons, Emilie herself, and even Tiggy [Pettifer, his former nanny], had chastised me for Oprah. How could you reveal such things? About your family?’

Hugh has known the royal family his whole life, with his late father, also named Hugh, being one of Charles’s dearest friends. 

Hugh van Cutsem became a friend of King Charles III during his university days at Cambridge. He went on to be a Life Guards officer and bloodstock breeder.

His father – Bernard van Cutsem – trained horses for Queen Elizabeth II as a horsebreeder and racehorse trainer. His son Hugh is now chairman of The British Deer Society – most recently seen on Clarkson’s Farm stalking deer with the star of the Amazon Prime show, Clarkson.

Harry is also believed to have ended his friendship with Hugh’s brother William van Cutsem. 

Old friends from Eton 

Prior to Megxit, Harry’s oldest and closest pals were from his days at Eton College.

But the friendship circle first got distant after they met Meghan and she ‘reprimanded’ them over jokes they made about transgender people and feminism, according to a book.

Shortly after Harry’s relationship with Meghan was revealed in November 2016, the duke invited 16 of his friends to a shooting party at Sandringham.

Shooting has been a long-time hobby for the prince and he was looking forward to joking around, bantering and drinking with his closest friends.

With the Queen’s permission, the party descended on the 20,000-acre Norfolk estate, which has some of the finest shooting locations in England, along with their wives and girlfriends.

Most of the crowd were old Etonians and were all ‘bonded by common assumptions, principles and loyalties’, according to Tom Bower in his 2022 book Revenge: Meghan, Harry And The War Between The Windsors.

The plan was to meet for dinner on Friday night, go out shooting on Saturday, and leave after lunch on Sunday.

Bower writes in the bestselling book: ‘He had not anticipated Meghan’s reaction.

‘Their jokes, involving sexism, feminism and transgender people, ricocheted around the living rooms and dining rooms.

‘Without hesitation, Meghan challenged every guest whose conversation contravened her values.

Following the episode, the alarmed pals whispered Harry was ‘f***ing nuts’ to be dating the actress who they said acted ‘princessy’, ‘woke’ and had no sense of humour.

Dominic West 

Actor Dominic West, who played Prince Charles in two seasons of The Crown, was once so close with Prince Harry that the two trekked to the South Pole together in aid of the charity Walking for the Wounded in 2014. 

However, speaking in 2023, West confirmed that he had been cut off by Prince Harry. According to the actor, the royal was angry with him after a press conference about the trip. 

Among the anecdotes that West told was how they had toasted their victory over the elements by drinking champagne from one of their co-adventurers’ prosthetic legs.

 ‘Harry threw a s*** fit,’ West’s friend told The Daily Mail’s Richard Eden in May 2022. ‘He accused Dominic of invading his privacy. Dominic told him not to be ridiculous. They haven’t spoken since.’

By the time West was called up to play Prince Harry’s father, King Charles III, in The Crown, their friendship had ended. 

Speaking of their former friendship on Times Radio in 2023, West revealed that he and Prince Harry no longer speak: ‘We sort of [lost touch because] I said too much in a press conference, and so, we didn’t speak after that. I think I was asked what we did. [And] what we did to celebrate when we got there and [I] probably said too much,” he continued.

The press conference in question took place in 2014, after the expedition, where West revealed that Prince Harry drank champagne out of a false leg, made ‘eye-wateringly rude jokes’, and was an expert in building makeshift toilets, something West joked was ‘a royal flush, in every way’. 

West admitted in a later interview that he ‘probably said too much’ about their friendship in that press conference.