Prince William is heading to the U.S. in September to attend the second Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit in New York, the first major royal visit to the city since Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were involved in a dramatic paparazzi car chase in May.
The Prince of Wales will undertake a series of engagements in the city on September 18 and 19. His trip coincides with New York Climate Week and the 78th session of the UN General Assembly.
Harry and Meghan's car chase took place after they attended the Women of Vision awards on May 16. On leaving the event with Meghan's mother Doria Ragland, their car was pursued by paparazzi for more than two hours. The couple's spokesperson described the chase as "relentless" and "near catastrophic."
The incident had troubling echoes of the death of Princess Diana in a 1997 crash. William and Harry's mother was a passenger in a car that crashed while it was being pursued by paparazzi on motorbikes.
After the couple's statement about the May 16 chase, other accounts emerged that suggested it might not have been as serious. However, polling for Newsweek found that a majority of the American public believed the spokesperson's description to have been accurate.
Buckingham Palace and members of the royal family did not issue any comment about the incident.
William's trip to New York will be his first since 2014, when he visited with his wife Kate. The Princess of Wales is not believed to be accompanying her husband in September.
William had been due to attend the first Earthshot summit in New York last September, but canceled his plans after the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8. The Prince and Princess of Wales did visit the U.S. later in the year, attending the Earthshot Prize ceremony in Boston in November 2022.
The Earthshot summit is an opportunity for past and prospective winners of the prince's eco-initiative to meet with policymakers and global business leaders. It is co-hosted with the charitable foundation of Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg holds the role of global adviser to the winners of the Earthshot Prize and is due to make a speech at the summit alongside William.
In recent years any trip to the U.S. by a member of the royal family has led to speculation over whether there will be a meeting with Harry and Meghan, who live in California.
William's visit will be his first to the U.S. since the publication of Harry's memoir Spare, in which he made a number of allegations about his older brother including one account of a physical assault.
In Spare and interviews promoting it, Harry confirmed that his relationship with William had broken down over the past six years, telling CBS' Anderson Cooper that the pair had in fact never been as close as the public believed and were not currently speaking.
The brothers were last seen at the same event on May 6, when they attended the coronation of their father King Charles III. Meghan stayed in California with the couple's children and there was no public communication between the brothers at the event. Harry returned to the U.S. just hours after the ceremonies had ended.
Newsweek has approached Kensington Palace via email for comment.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
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James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
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