Famous past appearances suggest Harry and Meghan should be wary of opening up to Oprah
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are due to give a “wide-ranging” interview with Oprah Winfrey next month, and according to a source the couple will not want to say anything to undermine their love and respect for the Queen. However, when royals face TV interviewers, it doesn’t always go to plan, as previous examples illustrate.
Continue reading...‘Tell-all’ interview announcement has prompted reports it will lead to couple being stripped of patronages
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not wish to embarrass the Queen despite frenzied speculation over their planned “wide-ranging” interview with Oprah Winfrey, it is understood.
The announcement by CBS of a “tell-all” intimate account by Harry and Meghan of their “Megxit” departure from the UK has led to reports it is the final straw for an exasperated Buckingham Palace who will strip the couple of their royal patronages.
Continue reading...Couple, who are expecting second child, to give first interview since quitting as senior royals
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will break their silence in their first interview since quitting their roles as senior royals when they sit down with Oprah Winfrey next month.
Prince Harry and Meghan, who revealed on Sunday they are expecting their second child, announced their plans to step back from the royal family on 8 January last year.
Continue reading...The Sussexes’ baby announcement shared on Valentine’s Day is a confident image of defiance that seems to take us inside their love – granny must find it utterly baffling
The Duke of Sussex’s left foot steals the show. His knobbly toes shove themselves into the foreground, bulging out to rhyme with his wife’s baby bump. Misan Harriman, the Nigerian-born photographer and friend of Meghan who took the picture remotely from his home in Woking, has created an unbuttoned romantic pastoral that doesn’t so much rebel against royal portraiture as bring it to an end.
Producing babies has been the primary business of royalty since time immemorial. Harry and Meghan’s new child will be eighth in line to the British throne, but the picture tells us quite flamboyantly the Sussexes are not in Britain and have no desire to be. It is a confident image of defiance. A cup of California dreamin’. The garden looks semi-tropical. Harriman’s preference for black and white gives the sun-kissed lawn a lovely silvery glow that sets the couple almost in a vision of paradise. But at the same time, their intimate casualness – those toes again – is intended to show us they are anchored to the reality that matters.
Continue reading...Couple share picture of Harry resting his hand on Meghan’s head as she lies in his lap cradling her bump
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have confirmed that they are expecting a younger brother or sister for their one-year-old son, Archie.
A spokesperson for Prince Harry and Meghan said: “We can confirm that Archie is going to be a big brother. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are overjoyed to be expecting their second child.”
Continue reading...Duke settles libel case with paper and Mail Online over stories about his relationship with armed forces
The Duke of Sussex has accused the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online of underplaying the seriousness of an error in a story about his relationship to the British armed forces as the two sides formally settled a high court libel claim.
Harry had sued Associated Newspapers over two articles published in October, which claimed he had snubbed the Royal Marines and “not been in touch … since his last appearance as an honorary marine in March”, citing “informed sources”.
Continue reading...Duke of Sussex calls for more accountability and accuses platforms of shunning responsibility
Prince Harry has said that “time is running out” for social media companies to address misinformation which he believes is a threat to democracies.
He has called for more accountability for platforms, accusing them of shunning responsibility, and highlighted both the role that they played in the US Capitol riots earlier this month and the treatment of the Rohingya population in Myanmar.
Continue reading...Ex-employees of royal couple could shed light on drafting of letter to Thomas Markle, high court hears
Four former employees of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex could have evidence shedding light on the circumstances of Meghan’s letter to her estranged father, the high court has heard.
Any role of the so-called “Palace Four” required further investigation, and was one of the reasons the duchess’s privacy action against the Mail on Sunday should proceed to a full trial, the newspaper’s publishers argued.
Continue reading...Surprise at end of episode featuring Sir Elton John, comedian James Corden and tennis star Naomi Osaka
When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they would put guest speakers at centre stage in their new podcast, few would have expected to hear from their toddler Archie.
But Prince Harry and Meghan’s 19-month-old son made a surprise cameo appearance at the end of the first episode, released on Tuesday, revealing a slight American accent as he wished listeners a happy new year.
Continue reading...Elton John and Deepak Chopra feature in this debut episode Holiday Special, as the Sussexes sit back and let the celebs talk to each other
“Hi guys, I’m Harry.”
“And I’m Meghan.”
Continue reading...Conservation charity videos prompt speculation the brothers are engaged in publicity tug of war
It was a roster of “wonderful talent”, Prince William said earlier this week. And so it gave him great pleasure to honour the winners of the Tusk awards, organised by a conservation charity working in Africa of which he is patron, at an online ceremony.
“I hope their stories go far and wide,” the Duke of Cambridge continued, in a video call from one of his several drawing rooms. His hope, he said, was that “young people look to these role models and say: ‘I can do the same.’”
Continue reading...While the fourth series has come under fire for factual inaccuracy, it is just one of many series to reflect the royals long history of mythmaking
‘Let’s get it over with,” sighs Prince Philip as he reluctantly prepares to venture towards a crowd of adoring subjects. On the one hand, this moment in The Crown has the ring of truth: realistically, why would members of the royal family be enthusiastic about meeting yet another mob of curtsying, awestruck plebs? It must be tremendously boring. And yet, on the other hand, how dare they? Who pays their wages?
A few things have become clear during the fourth season of Peter Morgan’s Netflix epic. Firstly, it’s just as well The Crown isn’t on the BBC. Because if it was, the nation’s enraged rightwing culture warriors would have descended upon Broadcasting House and stormed it. Secondly, this is a portrait of managed decline. And finally, The Crown means The Queen. But Olivia Colman’s Elizabeth II is more Canute than Britannia – not ruling the waves but nobly, if eventually absurdly, trying to hold them back.
Continue reading...Duchess of Sussex writes about her grief and pain in losing a baby, and addresses the stigma of miscarriage
The Duchess of Sussex has revealed her grief after suffering a miscarriage, in an article that speaks to loss and the importance of asking about others’ welfare in times of pandemic and polarisation.
Meghan shared the devastation that she and Prince Harry felt after she lost a baby in July and was admitted to hospital.
Continue reading...Princess’s brother says investigation should be free to examine every aspect of 1995 Martin Bashir interview
Earl Spencer has said he is “not at all satisfied” with the scope of the BBC’s investigation into the 1995 Panorama interview with his sister Princess Diana.
The news came as a source close to Prince Harry said he is “getting regular updates” about the inquiry into journalist Martin Bashir’s conduct in arranging the landmark show.
Continue reading...Prince blames royal upbringing for prior lack of insight and calls on others to educate themselves
The Duke of Sussex has said his upbringing as a privileged member of the royal family resulted in him having no understanding of unconscious racial bias, and called for others in a similar situation to “educate themselves”.
Prince Harry made the comments during a conversation with Patrick Hutchinson, the south London personal trainer who was photographed carrying a far-right protester to safety during unrest at an anti-Black Lives Matter rally this summer.
Continue reading...Duchess of Sussex speaks of ‘almost unsurvivable’ online abuse she has experienced
The Duchess of Sussex has revealed she was told last year that she was the “most trolled person in the entire world” in a podcast in which she opened up about the “almost unsurvivable” online abuse she has experienced.
Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry, joined three Californian high school students during an episode of their podcast, Teenager Therapy, and discussed topics including mental health stigma, self-care and online abuse.
Continue reading...Duke of Sussex says he will keep the 18th-century house as his UK residence
The Duke of Sussex has paid back £2.4m of taxpayers’ money used to renovate Frogmore Cottage, his spokesperson has said.
Harry and Meghan’s official residence was gifted to them by the Queen but required extensive renovation to make it habitable for the couple and their son, Archie.
Continue reading...The scampish prince and his duchess definitely have a story to tell, but it is not the story in this book
Prince Harry – HRH as was – has long had to endure cruel snarks about, among other things, his paternity, yet in Finding Freedom, he confirms one thing beyond a doubt: he is 100% his mother’s son. Just as 1992’s Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words, by Andrew Morton, gave readers an intimate look at the royal family from the perspective of a disgruntled member of the firm, so this book repeats the trick with Diana’s younger son and his wife, Meghan Markle. What this semi-sequel lacks in novelty, it makes up for in cattiness (aimed largely – and this is the only real surprise of the book – at the woman born Kate Middleton, now known as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. We’ll return to that in a tick.)
Writers Carolyn Durand and Omid Scobie insist Harry and Meghan were not involved in the book. Given the deluge of personal minutiae – from Harry’s emoji habit to Meghan’s favourite hair highlight shades – as well as their litigiousness when it comes to undesired invasions of privacy (they are currently engaged in legal battles with the Mail on Sunday and an American paparazzo), this seems about as credible as Diana’s similar protestations of innocence, all of which Morton scotched about 10 seconds after she died. But whereas Diana chose a tabloid hack as her Boswell, who knew a good story when he saw it, Harry and Meghan opted for two royal journalists. This means the reader is subjected to the Sylvie Krin style of writing that is de rigeur in the genre (I could just about stomach Harry and his “famed ginger locks”, but details of his and Meghan’s glamping trip to Botswana, on which “their days were spent getting closer to nature and their evenings, closer to each other” made me briefly furious that the book hadn’t come with a health warning). Less forgivable than the predictable fluff is how the authors fluff the tale. Because Harry and Meghan definitely have a story to tell, but it is not the story in this book.
Continue reading...Duke of Sussex urges advertisers to demand companies do more to curb hate speech online
Prince Harry has hit out at social media companies for creating a “crisis of hate” and called for “meaningful digital reform” after an unprecedented advertiser boycott of Facebook.
In an opinion piece for the US business magazine Fast Company, the Duke of Sussex revealed that he and his wife, Meghan, had begun campaigning for change in social media “a little over four weeks ago”.
Continue reading...Prince William said to have feared brother was ‘blindsided’ by lust in his haste to marry
The royal rift that led to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex leaving Britain and stepping back from royal duties began after Prince William feared his brother had been “blindsided” by lust in his haste to marry Meghan Markle, a new book claims.
Harry was offended by William’s advice to “take as much time as you need to get to know this girl”, causing tension between the two that finally led to “Megxit” , according to the authors of Finding Freedom.
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