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Tuesday, Aug 18, 2026

Harry and Meghan had police called to their home nine times in less than a year

Harry and Meghan had police called to their home nine times in less than a year

Police have been called to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s mansion in California nine times in as many months.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved in to their £11,000,000 home in Montecito – on the same estate as a number of celebrities – with their one-year-old son Archie in July last year.

Since then the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it has responded to calls listed as phone requests, alarm activations and property crimes.

The data was obtained under Freedom of Information requests by the PA news agency after the couple shared fears over security in their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Officers were called four times in July last year, just after the family moved there. One call is listed as a phone request, while the others are labelled ‘alarm activations’ and all occurred in the early hours of the morning.

One August request is listed as ‘misc priority incident’, while there was a further alarm in November.

Officers were also called to the property at 4.13pm on Christmas Eve, after a man was alleged to have trespassed.

Police then returned to the mansion on Boxing Day at 2.54pm for a call listed under ‘property crimes’.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office confirmed it has responded to calls to their mansion listed as phone requests, alarm activations and property crimes


Nickolas Brooks, 37, was arrested on a misdemeanour trespassing charge and later released, the office said.

The most recent call was at 2.21am on February 16 this year, and is listed as an alarm activation.

Representatives for Harry and Meghan declined to comment, and a spokesperson for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office declined to provide further details about the calls.

The couple spoke about their security arrangements in their two-hour sit-down interview with chat show host Oprah in March.

The duchess, who is now pregnant with a daughter, said she sent letters pleading with Harry’s family not to take away his personal protection officers as he was facing death threats.

The duke said he never thought he would have his UK taxpayer-funded security removed upon deciding to step back from royal duties.

The couple shared fears over security in their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey


He said: ‘Their justification is a change in status, of which I pushed back and said, “Well is there a change of threat or risk?”

‘And after many weeks of waiting, eventually, I got the confirmation that, no, the risk and threat hasn’t changed, but [it was] due to our change of status, which we would no longer be official working members of the Royal Family.

‘I was born into this position. I inherited the risk. So that was a shock to me.’

It has been estimated that the couple’s security costs $5.5 million a year (£3.9 million).

Prince Harry told Oprah that the couple used the money Diana had left him and his brother – thought to be £21 million – to make their new life possible.

He said the couple started looking into deals with Spotify and Netflix due to being ‘financially cut off by the Royal Family’.

They signed a $100 million (£72 million) arrangement with Netflix and a $25 million (£18 million) deal with Spotify.

It has also been revealed in the last few weeks that Prince Harry has taken on two new jobs – one working with the Aspen Institute at their new Commission on Information Disorder, and another at a start-up coaching firm based in Silicon Valley.

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