Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s return to Britain was always going to attract headlines.

What may be more revealing, however, is what some of the people they left behind in Montecito had to say after they were gone.

According to a News24 report, several former neighbors offered a strikingly cold assessment of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after the couple returned to the United Kingdom following six years in California. Rather than describing a beloved local family leaving town, some residents suggested Harry and Meghan never truly became part of the community in the first place.

Author and longtime Montecito resident Robert Eringer summed up what he described as the local mood in just two words:

“good riddance.”

Eringer said he was frequently out and about in Montecito but rarely, if ever, saw the couple.

“Personally it matters not one iota to me whether they’re in Montecito or in Britain,” he said.

He added that if the departure had not been reported in the news, many locals might not even have noticed it.

That is an unusually telling comment.

Harry and Meghan spent six years living in one of America’s most exclusive communities, in a home known as Château of Riven Rock. Yet according to some of the people quoted in the report, their presence remained strangely detached from ordinary neighborhood life.

Another neighbor described the departure itself as almost invisible.

“There were no moving trucks, no parties, nothing at all. One day they were here and the next they were back in England,” the person said.

The source characterized it as leaving “with a whimper, not a bang.”

That quiet exit stands in sharp contrast to the enormous public attention surrounding almost every major decision Harry and Meghan make.

But perhaps the most personal story came from a local woman identified as Susan.

She recalled leaving a bottle of wine at the gates of the Sussexes’ home when they first arrived in Montecito in 2020. It was intended as a simple welcome gesture.

The next day, according to Susan, the bottle was returned unopened.

That moment shaped her impression of the couple.

“I’m not sure they ever wanted to hang out with anyone who wasn’t a billionaire or famous or both,” she said.

She then gave an even harsher verdict:

“Meghan and Harry never became part of the community.”

That allegation is significant because Montecito is hardly a place where celebrity itself makes someone unusual.

The area is already home to high-profile figures, and yet the criticism in the article is not that Harry and Meghan were famous.

It is that some neighbors felt they remained separate.

That criticism becomes more pointed when placed beside the couple’s public emphasis on service.

Royal reporter Tom Sykes questioned why Harry and Meghan appeared to have so little involvement in local charitable efforts during their California years.

He said a well-placed source living near the Sussexes claimed they “had absolutely no involvement in the local charities there.”

Sykes found that especially notable because Harry and Meghan famously emphasized after leaving royal life that “service is universal.”

His question was simple:

“Why then didn’t they go and do some service when they got to Montecito?”

That does not establish that the Sussexes did nothing charitable during their time in California. The report focuses specifically on claims about their involvement in their immediate local community.

But that distinction is precisely what makes the criticism interesting.

Global philanthropy and local connection are not necessarily the same thing.

A couple can support causes internationally while still being seen by neighbors as distant.

The report also highlighted the social divide inside Montecito itself.

Sykes pointed out that although the area is famously wealthy, it exists alongside poorer communities made up in part of undocumented workers and lower-paid employees who help service the lifestyles of affluent residents.

Within those communities, he said, stories had circulated about the Sussexes struggling to retain staff and rumors that they were “snobbish and difficult to work for.”

Again, those are allegations and rumors, not established facts.

But the fact that similar themes appear repeatedly in accounts surrounding the couple creates a reputational problem whether or not every story is accurate.

Journalist Paula Froelich offered another version of the same sentiment.

Speaking about reactions she said she had heard in Montecito and Hollywood circles, she claimed:

“Uh bye, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

She described Harry and Meghan as “completely self-centred” and said they “were not a value add.”

Those comments are clearly opinions, but they reinforce the tone of the larger story.

The Sussexes did not leave California because they had completely abandoned it.

They reportedly intend to keep Château of Riven Rock as well as their luxury holiday property in Portugal.

Their new main base in Britain is expected to be in the Cotswolds, potentially placing them close to Highgrove House, where Harry spent significant time during his childhood and where King Charles III maintains a private residence.

That geography may bring Harry physically closer to his father.

But it also raises another question.

If the criticism from Montecito was that the Sussexes lived near people without really becoming part of the community, will their new life in Britain look different?

Some prospective neighbors in the Cotswolds have already expressed reservations about their arrival.

That makes the Montecito reaction more than a final insult from people they left behind.

It could become a warning about what follows them.

Harry and Meghan have often been defined by the enormous global attention surrounding them.

But community is built differently.

It happens through neighbors, local events, small gestures and repeated presence — exactly the things some Montecito residents claim they rarely experienced from the Sussexes.

Perhaps that is the strangest part of their California chapter.

Harry and Meghan lived in one of the most famous celebrity enclaves in America, yet some of the people closest to them geographically say they hardly knew them at all.

And now, as the couple begins another chapter in Britain, the real test may not be whether the press welcomes them back.

It may be whether their new neighbors eventually feel that Harry and Meghan actually live among them.