Sadiq Khan declined invitation to visit Meghan and Harry at their California home

Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, was invited to visit the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at their California home after he met with top studio chiefs during a US trip.

The offer was reportedly made after the Sussexes turned down an invitation to a VIP party Mr Khan hosted in Los Angeles last week.

However, the mayor did not make the 90-minute trip to the couple’s home in Santa Barbara due to “logistical” difficulties, according to the Evening Standard.

Mr Khan hosted a glitzy rooftop party at Holloway House, part of the Soho House empire, in West Hollywood last Tuesday.

Celebrities including James Corden, a friend of the Sussexes, and Richard Curtis mixed with a host of British expats working in the film industry.

The event was preceded by a “power roundtable” between Mr Khan and executives from Apple, Netflix, Universal, Disney, Paramount, Sony, 20th Century, HBO and Warner Bros.

The Duke and Duchess sent three of their employees in their absence, including James Holt, chief executive of their Archewell Foundation and Nick Clegg’s former communications chief.

Drawn into Royal Family’s 'civil war'

It was claimed that Mr Khan would not have wanted to be drawn into the Royal Family’s “civil war”, particularly just days before he was due to meet the Duke of Cambridge at the FA Cup Final last Saturday and the Queen at the opening of the Crossrail Elizabeth Line on Tuesday.

But he has long played an even hand when it comes to the royal rift, speaking out in defence of the Sussexes shortly after their controversial Oprah Winfrey interview in March 2021.

He said he had “complete empathy” with Prince Harry’s concerns about the security of his family and praised Meghan’s visit to the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, saying she had “touched people's lives in a way nobody had”.

Mr Khan told LBC at the time: “We have got to be a bit careful about assuming that because you think Her Majesty is wonderful and you think Charles and William are wonderful, you can’t think that Harry and Meghan are wonderful.”

Trump feud

The Mayor shares in common with the Duchess the dubious honour of having been publicly criticised by Donald Trump.

In Mr Khan's case, the feud dates back to the 2015 presidential campaign, when Mr Trump pledged to ban Muslims from the US and Mr Khan said that he hoped Mr Trump “loses badly”.

On a 2018 visit to London, Mr Trump said the Mayor had done a “very bad job on terrorism” and a “bad job on crime”.

Mr Trump had repeatedly made clear he is "not a fan" of the Duchess, recently claiming she was leading Prince Harry "by the nose".

Mr Khan was also singled out by a white supremacist teenager who killed ten people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in a hate-filled manifesto shared online.

Payton Gendron, 18, named him on his list of high-profile "enemies" to be killed.