Prince Harry stepped out for a solo evening in Los Angeles on Monday, attending the launch of José Andrés’s new cookbook at San Laurel in the Conrad Los Angeles hotel. Photographed in a navy suit beside Andrés, the Duke of Sussex arrived days before his daughter Princess Lilibet turns five on Thursday, June 4.
The appearance puts Harry back in the public eye at a moment when the family’s calendar is already drawing attention. Last year, he and Meghan Markle took Lilibet to Disneyland for her birthday, and Harry has spoken warmly about watching his children react to the park during a programme marking Disney’s 70th anniversary. This time, the event belonged to Andrés, whose latest book, Spain My Way, gathers recipes from his homeland across a career that made him one of the best-known chefs in the room.
The guest list underlined the scale of the launch. Gustavo Dudamel, Maria Shriver, Kyra Sedgwick, Tyler James Williams, Wolfgang Puck and Roy Choi were among those in attendance as Andrés celebrated the book at one of Los Angeles’s better-known hotel spaces. Harry’s presence was notable not just because of who he was with, but because he turned up alone.
That detail lands with extra weight because Harry and Meghan Markle have recently been making separate public appearances. Last month, Meghan traveled to Switzerland for the inauguration of The Lost Screen Memorial at Geneva’s Place des Nations, an installation hosted by the World Health Organisation and Archewell Philanthropies that uses 50 illuminated lightboxes to display lock screen images of children who died as a result of online violence and digital harm. She told the audience that “children must be safe by design, not safe by chance,” a message that placed the issue of online protection squarely at the center of her visit.
For now, the immediate question is less about the cookbook launch than the birthday that follows it. Princess Lilibet turns five on Thursday, June 4, and that date is likely to draw the next public sign of how the Sussexes choose to mark it, if they choose to mark it publicly at all. Monday’s Los Angeles outing suggests Harry is keeping up his own schedule while the family’s most personal moments remain closely watched.
