Prince Harry reportedly always had the “potential to jump” and move away from royal life, an expert has claimed.

Royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills said that in a chat she shared with the prince in New Zealand in 2015, Harry revealed that he would “love to move away” but duty was stopping him.

Speaking on The Sun’s Royal Exclusive Show, Ms Mills said: “I said to him ‘have you ever thought about moving away?’ He was like ‘yes, I’d love to. I’d love to move away. But I can’t because of what I need to do to support the Queen.’

“That has just stuck with me forever in terms of, he didn’t say it on camera, he just said it in a really candid chat with me.

“So whenever anyone says to me that it was Meghan’s fault they left, that conversation always springs to mind because he always had it in him – this potential to jump. I think Meghan came along and said, ‘hold my hand and we’ll jump together.'”

This insight comes after the prince and Meghan Markle quit life as senior royals in 2020, less than two years after their 2018 Windsor wedding.

They relocated to Montecito in California, where they still live to the present day in a £11 million mansion with their two children Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three.

At the time, the couple said that it was a desire to be financially independent and have more privacy that spurred them on to make the drastic move.

However, they have suggested there were more factors at play in both their 2022 Netflix docuseries and Prince Harry’s memoir Spare in 2023.

While Ms Mills believes Harry was always set to move abroad, other royal experts disagree and still think Meghan was the driving force behind the decision.

Speaking on The Sun’s first ever Royal Exclusive Live show, royal photographer Arthur Edwards believes the duke changed when he met his wife.

Speaking about what he believes happened, Arthur said: “Meghan said ‘we are going’ and that was it. And as we say, he made that decision and disappeared. That was his choice.”

Harry met Meghan in 2016 and proposed to her just over a year later.

After marrying in 2018, the couple then went on to welcome their first child Archie in 2019 before moving overseas less than a year later.