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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been accused of slurring at their elderly neighbor after moving to Montecito, California.
Frank McGinity, an 88-year-old US Navy veteran, said he has been a neighbor of the Sussexes since they moved to the area in 2020 and has tried to welcome them into the community with a gift.
But the gesture didn’t go as planned, he said.
In a chapter of his memoir Get Off Your Street, Mr McGinity said he approached the couple’s home to give them some films he had made about the history of the area.
“I have a big house next to Harry and Meghan’s property and I live in the guest house while I rent out the main house through Airbnb,” he said, according to The Montecito Journal.
“Harry and Meghan live on an old McCormick estate and I went to their gate with the films on a CD but they were not interested,” he added.
Mr McGinity said the couple’s security guard at the gate turned him away.
“The porter turned me down and wouldn’t take the film just because he said, ‘You’re not interested.’ I tried to be neighborly,” he said.
He added: “We don’t see them very often here. It is surprising that they came here. People are typically older. This is where the elephants die.”
Mr McGinity said he lives “a tiara or two miles” from the Sussexes’ estate in the wealthy enclave of Montecito.
Meghan and Harry settled into the California home there in July 2020, in a property said to be worth $14.7million (£11.2million), according to TMZ.
The Duke and Duchess moved to the United States in 2020
(Getty Images)
A spokesman for the couple told The Independent at the time: “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved into their family home in July this year.
“Since their arrival, they have settled into the quiet privacy of their community and hope this will be respected both by their neighbors and by them as a family.”
Since moving to the US, Harry has visited the UK on a number of occasions, including attending the funeral of the late Queen, the coronation of the King and to appear in court during his legal case against the Daily Mirror.