When the Duke and Duchess failed this year to snag an invite to the Oscars or the Beckham wedding, it was clear that they are slowly being frozen out of Hollywood, one red-carpet event at a time. Last year, the couple didn’t make the cut for Barack Obama’s 60th birthday celebration, attended by Tom Hanks, Beyoncé and Jay-Z and the Clooneys. Angela Levin, Prince Harry’s biographer, suspects that the Obamas are wary of Meghan’s supposed desire to run for the presidency and worried about upsetting the British royals.

One LA source told me that “the main reason for them being excluded is that organizers know that all media attention would be on them and take away from the event or people there to celebrate.” They also claimed that one A-lister, known for lavish parties, left the pair off a guestlist because of their “capacity to share,” adding that celebs never know where details of their private lives might end up. This is quite the irony, given Harry and Meghan’s self-professed obsession with privacy. It’s also a far cry from the open-arms welcome that they presumably expected would await them in Los Angeles after turning their backs on royal duties in 2020.

Meghan and Harry’s recent decision to return to the UK poses awkward questions for the couple. Why return now, when they didn’t come to the funeral of Prince Philip, or to support William at the unveiling of the Princess Diana statue at Kensington Palace? And why step foot in a place that made you feel so unwelcome that, according to Meghan, it made her feel suicidal? Perhaps the answer is that they have exhausted their options in Hollywood.