Devastating new blow for Harry and Meghan
Meghan has suffered yet another brutal new blow as the latest polls reveal a devastating truth about the Sussexes.
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Despite science having bestowed on the world lab grown meat and the slinky, we still do not have a working time machine.
Until that glorious day when we can all pop back and take day trips to the Peloponnesian War, we will just have or make do with the recesses of the internet where Meghan Markle is still a dazzling royal fiance and no one inside Buckingham Palace had ever been forced to learn who Eckhart Tolle was.
Do some digging online and you can find the very first time that pollster YouGov included Meghan in their royal research in November 2017. Then, half (well, 49 per cent) of Brits had a positive view of the California-native, putting her ahead of the then Prince Charles.
MORE: Staggering fortune Harry, Meghan lost exposed
And now? On Wednesday, YouGov reported that the UK’s support for Meghan, long since the Duchess of Sussex, has fallen to an all-time low. Twenty per cent have a positive view of her - and 65 per cent have a negative one. (The 14 per cent who don’t know are centrist dads who could identify a female member of the royal family if you waved a 50 pound note in front of their face.
This polling is just the latest sign that she and other half Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, a newly-outed hat-fancier, are losing the battle of public opinion.
Sure, you say. These numbers, they only asked the Brits. They’ve never liked Meghan who pitched up in their country with her ready supply of publicly dispensable hugs and leg-crossing guile and idea to install a yoga studio in the Royal Mews and never warmed to her.
How many ‘x’s’ again in ‘xenophobia’?
New poll by @YouGov shows Prince William and Kate are the most popular royals whilst Prince Andrew is in bottom place just behind Prince Harry and Meghan.
— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) May 14, 2025
75% of Brits have a positive opinion of William, 72% for Kate.
Compared to 5% who have positive view of Andrew, and 27% for… pic.twitter.com/ybnVyXmXeZ
MORE: Staggering fortune Harry, Meghan lost exposed
But Americans aren’t exactly that crash hot on the 43-year-old entrepreneur either. A second poll from YouGov and The Times, asked 1300 US adults about their views on the Sussexes and the results are not exactly swooning.
A positive view of her was reported by 41 per cent, and 25 per cent negative, putting her on a net rating of +16 per cent.
Harry might just beat her in the US, with a net rating of +35 but Prince Willim, the destroyer of dog bowls, still beats them both with +53 per cent.
(And beating everyone? In number one spot for Americans is Diana, Princess of Wales and in second place, Queen Elizabeth on +75 per cent.)
The moral of the story: In both the UK and the US, where we have firm numbers, the results are hardly enough to bust out the good cashew and goji power balls in the Sussex HQ breakroom.
Five years after touching down in the United States, Meghan and Harry are still struggling, struggling to win over the supposedly land of the free.
The numbers are about as cheery for Harry. In the UK, the duke has a -36 per cent approval, the lowest numbers he has registered since 2023, and which comes after his recent explosive BBC interview where he said he was the victim of “a good old-fashioned establishment stitch-up”.
In the US, he fares better but is still stuck behind his older brother.
Perhaps the most damning new finding for the Sussexes is the degree of shoulder-shrugging indifference of Amecians towards the duke and duchess. Nearly two thirds of respondents (61 per cent) said their opinion of Harry and Meghan had not changed since their move Stateside. Since then, 17 per cent now have a worse opinion of them and only 10 per cent a better one.
It’s hard not to write about this all and succumb to using the word ‘beleaguered’.
As Meghan pushes to launch her As Ever lifestyle company (an enterprise that answers the question, but what if you wanted to dibble dried flower petals all over your scrambled eggs?) they remain as lightning rod as a large flagpole erected atop a skyscraper in an electrical storm.
Earlier this month Saturday Night Live took a pop at them, with presenter Colin Jost joking, while talking about the recent US, UK trade deal, “All that Britain demands in return is that we keep these two,” as a photo of the Sussexes appeared.
On March 14 it marked five years since the duke and duchess’ self-styled “freedom flight” when they jetted into Los Angeles and now news about the Sussexes tends to fall into one of four sorts.
There are the magazine exposés, such as those from The Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair’s 8000-word January whopper which described the duchess’ management style as “really, really, really awful”. There are updates about the duchess’ various solo projects, such as With Love, Meghan, which managed to attract a preponderance of biting reviews.
And then there are the tabloid fodder updates about whatever photo of a rose bush or the back of one of their children’s heads she has posted on Instagram.
Harry predominantly only makes news when he is back in court in the UK for his latest legal stouch, one of his charities is embroiled in a crisis, or he has come out to have a go at his family.
One of the most fundamental issues facing the duchess is this: Earlier this Netflix supremo Ted Sarandos said, “I think Meghan is underestimated in terms of her influence on culture” and that certainly was true in the past. But does the same still hold? Even a bit?
Their wider influence and what they represent has gone from being something meaningful and politically freighted - about inequality and institutional power and discrimination - to them being reduced public figures who make a bit of tele occasionally and have a jam line.
If there is one lesson they could and should take it’s, swings and roundabouts.
If the Sussexes need some cheering up, they should look to none other than King Charles. In the 90s, after admitting to having cheated on Diana, a poll found that two thirds of Brits didn’t think he was fit to rule. And this week? Nearly exactly the same number (61 per cent) happily told YouGov they thought he was doing a bang up job.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
Originally published as Devastating new blow for Harry and Meghan
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