Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘attention-seeking stunt’

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex popped up in a surprising location and it speaks to what their long-term plan is.

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1138 days. That is, as of the time of writing, how long Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the world’s only two royal refugees have spent in the United States. And during that time, there have been well over a hundred games played by their local basketball team, the LA Lakers.

Which is why it’s particularly curious that the very first time the couple should decide to head out for a cutesy, patriotic stars’n’stripes evening of classic Americana courtside just happened to be this week.

You know, right at nearly exactly same time that Prince William was attending the dawn service back in London to mark Anzac Day, right as we get to the pointy end of the run-up to King Charles’ coronation; and right at the same time that their brand, popularity and star power is on the brink of collapsing.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Memphis Grizzlies at Crypto.com Arena. Picture: Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images

So there on Monday night, LA time (as the Prince of Wales was waking up in the very early morning hours of Tuesday and trying to find his most sombre suit in the dark) the Sussexes were making a totally out-of-character appearance to watch the Lakers play another team I could not be bothered googling.

And I’d wonder if the Sussexes cared that much about who was actually on the court and scoring baskets too because I think we can now say we have clearly reached the stunt stage of the Sussexes’ Stateside campaign.

Like two Real Housewives eager to shore up their celebrity credentials, here we have the King’s son and daughter-in-law indulging in one of the staple La La Land attention-seeking plays that is so blatant I thought it had gone the way of the flip phone and Paris Hilton’s pretend bimbo act.

The Sussexes appeared on the kiss cam.

What the hell has happened to Harry? Why does his life now more closely resemble that of some Vanderpump Rules ‘star’ rather than the man who once promised to “to uphold the values” of the late Queen?

There can be no greater and more perfect illustration of how stratospherically divergent Harry’s life is from his elder brother’s William’s than these two sets of images taken only hours apart: Kardashian-lite vanity outing versus sombre duty. In fact Kim Kardashian, her daughter and her mother Kris Jenner were also at the Lakers game.

On one hand, we have the Sussexes giggling and laughing with Meghan embracing linen with all the brio of a wannabe influencer and Harry doing West Coast dad-trying-to-be-cool style with his T-shirt-under-a-suit thing. Let’s hope he does not make it to stage two in this progression which constitutes getting hair plugs and a Porsche 911 appearing in his driveway.

The whole outing felt about as natural as a Bravo’s star’s suspiciously puffy lips and about as spontaneous as a canned laugh track. There is also the fact that this was not some local fun evening but required a four-hour round trip from their Montecito home.

The pair made a rare outing this week. Picture: Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images

Meanwhile, we had William back in London watching the sunrise as he solemnly laid an arrangement to make Anzac Day with a card reading: “In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.”

Or to put it another way, while one man was sacrificing sleep to pay his respects, the other was sacrificing what dignity he has left.

Interesting too that this is not the first time that the Sussexes have headed out for a conspicuous night out while big things were afoot back in Blighty.

In late February, they made another lengthy car ride from their home to Los Angeles for dinner at A-list haunt the San Vicente Bungalows on the day it was revealed that the King was humiliatingly ejecting them from their UK home Frogmore Cottage.

Prince William at the Dawn Service for Anzac Day 2023 at Hyde Park. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Still, even if we chalk up the timing of the Sussexes’ outing with William’s Anzac engagement as entirely accidental, the fact that the couple – and Meghan especially – has returned to the limelight with a vengeance so close to Charles’ coronation is a different story entirely.

Because after months of Meghan staying out of public view, she’s baaack.

Over the weekend The Telegraph broke the news that Charles and Meghan had written to one another after the Sussexes’ Oprah Winfrey interview and that she had expressed her “racism concerns” to King.

Harry and Meghan’s outing has raised eyebrows. Picture: Andrew Milligan/WPA /Getty Images

The story appeared to have come from a source with unusually intimate access to Meghan but before anyone could point fingers, the couple’s “global press secretary” (I mean, really),

Ashley Hansen, popped up with a statement saying, “The Duchess of Sussex is going about her life in the present, not thinking about correspondence from two years ago related to conversations from four years ago.

“Any suggestion otherwise is false and frankly ridiculous.”

On Monday, a startlingly glossy and dewy-looking Meghan appeared in a video at a TED Talk to introduce photographer Misan Harriman who has taken a number of official photos of la famille Sussex.

Then, that night, we had her and Harry yukking it up at that Lakers game, a bizarrely public and exposed choice of outing for two people who have a famously antagonistic relationship with photographers and the tabloid press.

Could the fact that the Suits actress has suddenly emerged from her mysterious Montecito chrysalis have anything to do with the fact that back in the UK the King and his wife Queen Camilla are busy practising not falling over while wearing their bulky crowns ahead of their coronation? An event that the Duchess won’t be attending?

What will be interesting to see is that now Meghan has returned to the spotlight, will we finally see whatever she might have been cooking up? A new TV show? Podcast? Or given her sudden Kardashian-Jenner proximity, lip kit? And quite how much will all of this detract from the historic goings on over the Pond?

To borrow from Sherlock Holmes, the game is afoot.

Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles

Originally published as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘attention-seeking stunt’