Meghan Markle and Prince Harry‘s decision to “step down” from their roles as senior royals sent shockwaves around the world—and inside the royal family itself.

On January 8, the couple made the announcement on their @SussexRoyal Instagram page. “After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution. We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen,” they wrote.

Journalist Tom Bradby, who filmed the Sussex’s documentary in Africa, says there are a lot of hurt feelings involved with this situation. “There’ve been a lot of fallouts; a lot of harsh things were said around the time of the wedding,” he told People. “And it’s gone a bit too far. And certainly the rest of the family find Harry and Meghan very difficult and, from Harry and Meghan’s point of view, they’re just being driven out as they see it. And it’s sad.”

“There are going to be so many complications, so many controversies,” he continued. “There needs to be a peace deal really soon because this is so toxic, there’s so much anger and, to be honest with you at the moment it looks like it might get worse, not better.”

Bradby also gave some insight into why Markle and Harry’s announcement might have been released when it was. “Harry has been talking to his family for some weeks about all this,” he said. “And certainly as I understand it what happened is he was asked by members of his family—or at least their officials—to put some of these ideas in writing. He said, ‘I really don’t want to do that because it normally leaks.’ And they were very insistent in order to go forward and discuss it properly it had to be put in writing. He did put it in writing, and it did leak. So yes, I don’t think [the royal family] got much heads-up as to the actual announcement, but they certainly knew what was going on. I think [Harry] felt once it had been leaked all bets were off.”

He also explained that he thinks the duke and duchess have a philosophical approach to their future, but understand that they won’t necessarily have the final say in how this plays out. “They’re philosophical as in it’s up to [the royal family]—protection, Frogmore, everything else, the titles,” Bradby said. “You want to take it all away, fine. That’s okay. But it’s sort of up to you. We’d like to be involved, we’d like to do our charities, we’d like to support the Queen and we’d like to do stuff through the Commonwealth, but we accept that we’ve got no right to do that anymore.”

Needless to say, this is all very complicated. But reports say the queen wants a solution found quickly, so we may have some more answers about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s situation soon.

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