It wasn’t long after Prince Harry met Meghan Markle that he began to trade some of his more eyebrow-raising classic English habits for her more clean-cut Californian ones.
Namely, he avoided his family’s traditional hunts and adopted a largely vegan diet to appease his animal activist wife.
WATCH: Meghan Markle speaks at the NAACP Image Awards with Prince Harry
So it was with some surprise recently that onlookers spotted Harry, 37, skulking around the Fort Worth Stockyards in Texas, where the cowboy hat-clad royal was apparently checking out some rodeo action – without his wife.
Apparently keen to conceal spending his weekend watching bucking bulls and broncos, officials who’d originally posted on social media about the royal’s VIP visit soon scrubbed the images from the internet once media questions began.
Indeed, Stockyards Rodeo secretary Cindy Reid – who deleted a picture of the prince on her Instagram – did not respond to New Idea’s requests for comment.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) decried Harry’s presence at the Cowtown Coliseum as “extremely disappointing to see that Prince Harry made the misjudgement to attend a rodeo, a crude, old amusement for bored cowboys who view animals as nothing more than things”.
But, sources say that’s nothing compared to his 40-year-old wife’s feelings on the topic.
“Meghan adores all animals and she would be horrified to find her husband attended a rodeo,” says a long-time friend of the Duchess of Sussex. “It’s hard to know what he was thinking at the time.”
Harry’s secret appearance in Texas is just the latest example in which he’s been jetsetting without his wife.
Last month, he attended the Super Bowl in Los Angeles with cousin Princess Eugenie, 31, without Meghan, despite her home team, the Rams, winning on their turf.
In August – two months after the birth of his daughter, Lilibet – he travelled solo to Aspen, Colorado, to compete in a charity polo event.
New Idea has since learnt that Harry is regularly spotted “on his lonesome” in his newly adopted home town of Montecito, California.
“You often see him out riding his bike or walking the dog alone,” says a source.
“Meghan is rarely seen at all, and hardly ever with her husband when she does venture out for a bit of shopping.”
Insiders reveal that Harry, inspired by one of his household staff members who runs ultramarathons, whiles away hours hiking in the Santa Ynez mountains behind his luxury home.
“Harry and Meghan seem to live separate lives at times,” says a source, who insists Meghan is often at home with the kids a lot and Harry jets around taking business meetings with the start-ups he’s linked to.
“It’s great that he’s throwing himself into life in the US, but the first question on everyone’s lips when they see him is, ‘Where’s your wife?!’”
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