By this time, the British press had come to the conclusion that Harry and Meghan were arch hypocrites who thought that the rules applied to everyone but themselves. They had been getting flack throughout much of the previous year for not living by the rules they preached, but which they nevertheless advocated everyone else abide by. They did not help themselves by advocating their right to breach national and international trademark laws while demanding that the press respect other laws which they and their agents, rather than the press, had broken, in particular Meghan’s friends leaking the contents of the letter she had written to her father to People magazine, then suing the Mail on Sunday when it was her friends who had breached her privacy, causing her father to defend himself against her ‘friend’s’ allegations. While this was not an anomaly which perturbed the American press, it did the British, whose sense of justice rankled.
What caused further offence in Britain was Harry and Meghan linking the Cambridges’ trademarking of their brand with the Sussexes’. By bringing in the Cambridges, the statement revealed how adept the Sussex public relations machine was at muddying the waters in their favour and to the detriment of others. Once more, the trans-Atlantic difference could not have been more pronounced. In the US, people did not even notice the importance of the point being made, largely, of course, because the British Royal Family is not their own institution but merely a source of glamour, admiration, interest, or indifference, depending on the perspective of the reader. In Britain, however, the swipe was noticeable, notwithstanding there being no justifiable parallels between the situations of the Sussexes and the Cambridges. There has never been any concern at the palace about the Cambridges indulging in commercial activity that might result in negative consequences for the monarchy, nor has that couple ever baulked at revealing their commercial intentions to the powers-that-be. The same was not true of the Sussexes. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s commercial plans had been a bone of huge contention at Buckingham Palace for the past year. They wanted the licence to do as they pleased, without reference to the palace. No oversight, consultation, and certainly no recrimination such as occurred when the palace discovered that they had struck a deal with Disney and she had taped the voiceover from Elephants Without Borders in autumn 2019.
At the time of writing, the harbingers are that Meghan and Harry have set themselves up to be cooperating royalty to American liberal billionaires, with each party promoting the other’s philanthropic ventures and garnering the rewards of their humanitarian enterprises. How seriously Meghan and Harry as a double act will be taken in the years to come depends on many variables. These include the following they amass, the mutually advantageous links they forge with financial institutions and people like Bill and Melinda Gates and Oprah Winfrey, even whether there is or isn’t much news that day, causing their latest posting to achieve greater or lesser attention. I do not foresee them retiring from public view any time soon, because Meghan and Harry both understand that fame is a commodity with a price tag, and the coinage isn’t only money but also glory and the ability to use their profiles to further their causes.
As regards fame and fortune in America, Meghan is right. America is not the United Kingdom. Its values are in some ways entirely different from ours, and what works there does not work here, and vice versa. My good fortune is to have been partly educated in the United States and to have lived in New York until my mid-twenties. I have friends and family there, and visit often. I can therefore see both sides of the coin. The British press might wish to delude itself into believing that Meghan and Harry will wither on the vine and die without their attentions, but nothing could be further from the truth. Even as a busted royal flush, Meghan and Harry, or Meghan on her own, will continue to have appeal. Maybe not as much as they would have had, had they retained their rank, or, should they be divorced, had she remained his wife, though that might change depending on which billionaire she marries afterwards.
There will always be institutions who want what are billed as first tier speakers or celebrities, even though they are no longer of the first rank except in PR circles. In the commercial world, there are also companies which will pay good money for celebrities like the Sussexes to assist them in marketing their wares, upping their profile, or enhancing their prestige. That too will remain a potential source of revenue. Meghan and Harry’s aptitude for publicity, together with her stated desire to be the most famous woman in the world, will doubtless continue to coalesce with her ambition to end up having the world’s largest Instagram following. One will feed the other, while she uses her entrepreneurial skills to exploit both for her maximum financial and reputational benefit. I for one will be very surprised if we don’t see a lot more of the Meghan show, with or without Harry, in the future. She is an operator of the highest order, and I fully expect her to do all she can to operate at the highest level, for as long as she can, and for all the rewards she can obtain for Harry and herself. All of this will be done while she and Harry espouse humanitarian causes in rhetoric that will appeal to those of their political bias. Critics will be dismissed as racists, anti-feminists, and everything else that can be thrown at them by her team as well as by
