Justine Parkhurst was returning from her grandmother’s funeral and couldn’t hold back tears on the plane. However, she did not expect that Prince Harry would offer her words of comfort, who happened to be sitting right next to her, writes . At first, the woman did not even realize who was her neighbor on a commercial flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. She only noticed him when he started adjusting his seat.
The Duke of Sussex offered unexpected words of comfort to the bereaved. “We talked for a while and I told him that my grandmother was the only person I really wanted to tell about sitting next to a member of the royal family,” Justine revealed. “He answered me: ‘She already knows.’ I believe he was right. I bet she set it all up,” added.
That Justine found herself on this particular Saturday flight was, she says, a huge coincidence. She and her husband were originally supposed to fly on Friday, but at the last minute they moved the trip. They were then extremely lucky to be upgraded to first class for free – the exact same section that Harry and Meghan Markle traveled in after returning from their Australian tour.
“My husband and I were super lucky. I can already tell you while waiting to board the plane that he was very nice and so was his wife. They were nice to everyone around them and to each other,” Justine said. She also recalled seeing two men in plainclothes with guns peeking out from their pockets while waiting to board.
Duchess Meghan sat across the aisle in a separate box. That left her husband in the middle aisle seat, which meant he was sitting right next to Justine, who was headed home to North Carolina.
“Tears began to run down my cheeks as I sat down. I’m always happy to upgrade to a better class on such a long flight, but at that moment I wished I wasn’t on that plane at all.” she confided in a post on Facebook. “I only noticed the person sitting next to me when she was adjusting her seat. It was Prince Harry. His wife was sitting across from him and their security guards were right behind them,” she concluded.
