ALISON BOSHOFF: The REAL reason Meghan Markle hasn't been at Harry's side after ... trends now

They are, as she famously recounted, like the conjoined palm trees on their Montecito lawn, profoundly ‘connected’.

Indeed, so much of the mythology and ‘branding’ of Harry and Meghan’s new philanthropic, post-royal life has been built on this one central image: H&M, an inseparable, intertwined unit, portraying their unique rock-solid bond as existing on a higher emotional plane than that occupied by most mere mortals.

Yet as Harry has embarked on his most significant project to date, the record-breaking, best-selling memoir Spare, he’s done it mostly solo. Meghan is nowhere to be seen. The former actress hasn’t once accompanied him on his exhaustive tour of TV studios and interviews to promote the book, despite undeniably excelling at life in the spotlight.

When one considers how nervous Harry is about public speaking — as he explains himself in Spare — and given the extraordinarily high stakes of what he had to say, on tricky subjects as wide-ranging as being physically attacked by his brother to his frost-bitten manhood, it seems unusual that his normally ever-present wife remains firmly behind the scenes.

He even wrote a tribute to Meghan in Spare, saying: ‘This book would’ve been impossible, logistically, physically, emotionally, spiritually without you. Most things would be impossible without you.’ Surely, then, at this point of all points, he would need Meghan by his side?

So where is she? The couple have not been seen in public together since December 7, in New York, where they received the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award for their work on racial justice and mental health. Harry was grimacing and grinning in a lounge suit, while Meghan dazzled in white, wearing an aquamarine ring which once belonged to Princess Diana.

Some believe that Penguin Random House, Harry’s publishers, would have expected Meghan to be more visible of late, to help push the book’s sales. One senior media executive tells me: ‘What most people have concluded is that Penguin would have told her from the get go that Harry needed to be front and centre during his book tour — that it’s his journey — and that he needs to shine.

‘However, most people also know that the two of them together generates far more headlines — all famous couples do — and I cannot imagine Penguin would have wanted her to be quite this absent.’

Since they were last seen in public, of course, their six-hour long Netflix series has shown them on the small screen sitting side-by-side, linking hands, soupily and soppily inseparable.

But Meghan wasn’t present, on or off camera, during his interviews with ITV’s Tom Bradby and CNN’s Anderson Cooper. These two set-piece, sit-down chats were actually filmed in the week before Christmas in the £5,700-a-night Churchill Cottage at the San Ysidro Ranch, in Montecito, California.

We know that Meghan loves it there — it was the venue for her interview and photoshoot with Hollywood bible Variety in October. However, she wasn’t anywhere on the property when Harry poured his heart out in those two lengthy TV interviews, sources say.

Similarly, when Harry faced the quick wit of Stephen Colbert on The Late Show on the eve of Spare’s publication in New York, he was without his wife, who was neither there to pep him up beforehand, or to decant his experience afterwards.

Into this vacuum has emerged a wide variety of theories. The internet, as one would expect, is ablaze with unfounded, cruel and hysterical suggestions for the reasons for Meghan’s whereabouts.

Others in the mainstream media have posited ideas, too. The Daily Telegraph’s Victoria Ward

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