The best thing about being Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex right now, as far as I can tell, is that no one is making them go to Birmingham. The Commonwealth Games opened in the Midlands city on Friday and several members of the royal family will be sent to fly their flag in the coming days.
It doesn’t matter that much of Europe is busy with SPF 50 or that the Queen has started her usual summer vacation or that the beaches of Mustique are calling. To be a working member of the British monarchy this week, every available HRH needs to be up front as they look happy to be wearing a Team GB polo shirt and watching badminton.
Having fled more than two and a half years ago for sunnier climes and fatter bank accounts, this kind of tedious duty is no longer part of the Sussexes’ lives.
Small mercies, huh?
However, aside from the fact that the pair won’t have to contend with so much polyester and so many hours of archery anytime soon, things aren’t exactly looking rosy for Montecito, as the pair have been dealt blow after blow during the last time 12 days or so.
Rewind to July 18 and Harry and Meghan were traveling to New York where they had an appointment at the UN, and the Duke was asked to give the address to mark Nelson Mandela Day. The pair were ushered into the lobby of the famous building, a masterful display of what has become a hallmark of their post-royal careers: purposefully parading into important buildings for supposedly important meetings and events after which… nothing seems to happen.
Anyway, they were back! Back to doing your most royal! Harry gave a speech, Meghan wore a Jackie O-style black dress – what could go wrong?
Well, for one thing, there weren’t that many people. As the Duke of Sussex delivered his address, talking about climate change (conveniently forgetting that the family uses private jets for irrigation), disinformation and abortion rights (all good stars on those fronts), the the vast majority of seats were visibly empty.
For whatever reason, most of the great and good of the international body would seem to have decided to be elsewhere and not see how the sixth in line to the throne made a crack at the international statesman. (Maybe the UN cafeteria served waffles?)
If Harry looked sad when the pair were caught by the paparazzi leaving the Italian restaurant Locanda Verde, he had every reason to look bitter. Biographer Tom Bower’s was published that week Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the war between the Windsors.
Bower’s book is a largely unforgiving and very unflattering view of the Sussexes, seeing them as fueled by ego and a misguided notion that Meghan would be Diana mark two, apart from the fact that, according to the biographer’s account, she seemed having no interest in the monarchy, no willingness to learn its evil ropes and little enthusiasm for the boring parts of HRH-dom.
As the week progressed, Bower hit the press rounds, offering a series of scathing takes, including that he thought they “pose a real threat to the royal family” and calling the duchess “very intriguing”.
What has been surprising has been Montecito’s reaction, with the Sussexes so far not commenting. While in the past, the duo has filed several court cases against various media and sent legal letters during the storm regarding the name of their daughter Lilibet, but in this case they have remained silent.
Then came the development in a Florida court when the duchess’ lawyers got into the “subjective” nature of the truth. Earlier this year, the former actress was sued by her estranged half-sister Samantha Markle for allegedly telling “false and malicious lies” during her interview with Oprah Winfrey last year.
This week, lawyers for the Duchess of Sussex dismissed the case, with legal documents filed alongside them arguing that Meghan’s description of growing up “as an only child” during the interview was “obviously not intended to be a statement of a objective fact”. and was “a textbook example of a subjective statement about how a person feels about their childhood”.
While it’s an argument that has more than a tinge of Philosophy 101 (what is truth?), this strategy raises an obvious question: If Meghan’s characterization of her upbringing was “subjective,” then was it either the other devastating claims he made during the two-hour call-all also “subjective”?
A bright spot on the horizon for the duo throughout this was Harry’s successful appeal to the High Court for a judicial review of the Home Office’s decision not to automatically grant him bodyguards at full time when in the UK.
Except, even that wasn’t exactly a slam dunk; just because the review has been granted does not automatically mean it is successful.
Then there’s the cost of the whole legal mess. The Ground has reported that the UK government has spent $156,000 on the case from September last year to May 2020. If Harry’s costs are similar, that would mean he’s also spent a lot into the six figures to argue the case about his safety arrangements which only correspond to the handful of days a year he has spent, on average, in the UK since he quit smoking.
That bill could only rise if he ultimately loses the case, as the Home Office has previously said it will seek to recover costs if they win.
While August is traditionally a quiet month at Planet Royal, the rest of the year is shaping up to be a barnstorming season.
Harry looks back on some of the most monumental months of his life since the Megxit boom, with news that his memoir will be published before Christmas and with Page Six after reporting that Netflix wants the couple’s “at home” docu-series (shut up in the back yelling “reality show”) to hit screens this year as well.
This book and show are very likely to be huge commercial hits for the pair, much-needed career wins after releasing exactly no content to date for the streaming giant since 2020, but at what cost?
If either or both of these projects focus on little more than the Sussexes launching a new volley of complaints about their treatment by the royals, interspersed with a few vignettes of them doing a bit of grooming, then they might be playing with fire
Should that scenario play out, they risk looking dangerously little more than perpetual whiners clinging to self-styled victim status inside their $20 million mansion at a time when war, fire , floods and smallpox are destroying the world. world
Then there’s what these two releases might have for their fraught relationship with the House of Windsor, a link that is said to be hanging by a thread.
Like the of the sun Former royal editor Duncan Lacrombe recently told the Daily Beast: “Once the book comes out, William will have to make a decision about what to do with Harry, but he won’t do anything until he knows what’s going on. Every page of this book . The reality is that if, as a senior member of the royal family, you’ve written a tell-all book, you’ve broken the No. 1 rule of the royal family.”
If Harry’s book and/or his Netflix series sees them paint big new targets on the monarchy’s back, Queen & co. sit back and suffer another hellish round of royal character assassinations?
So far, the Sussexes’ repeated media provocations have been met with some imperiousness and contrived disdain from London, but if the Duke and Duchess continue to bait the royal family, but we could soon find out that The Firm he has very sharp teeth.
For example, the duo still, of course, use their talented Sussex titles from the Queen, day in and day out. While only parliament could officially revoke these titles, that didn’t mean the weight of the Crown and Harry’s father and brother couldn’t be done to pressure them to stop using them.
Would Prince Harry and Meghan Mountbatten-Windsor (or Prince Harry and Princess Henry of Wales), as they could only then be called, be so commercial for Hollywood?
There is a lot at stake for them next month: their image, reputations, careers and even a lot of money. But, there’s always a silver lining: At least nobody’s going to sit them out in a table tennis match anytime soon.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and writer with over 15 years’ experience working with several of Australia’s leading media titles.
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