Harry, Meghan release unseen pictures in marriage fightback

After being photographed apart for months, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have veered off course and put out an unusual message.

The late Queen used to send covert signals to her aides via her signature Launer handbag.

See Her late Majesty neatly, niftily shifting it from the crook of one arm to another? She was done talking to whichever Liverpudlian charity organiser or mid level official from a Romanian trade delegation was in front of her. Next!

The royal mother tongue is an inherently visual one.

That language of signs and symbols is clearly one that Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex clearly still fluently speak if their hot-off-the-presses digital Christmas card released on Tuesday is anything to go by.

Every year since they married has seen them choose a single nice photo of themselves, making this year’s offering a notable departure from form, this year’s card features a grid of six images including a rare shot of them with their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

Prince Harry and Megan Markle’s Christmas card for 2024 included a rare shot of their children.

Prince Harry and Megan Markle Christmas card for 2024.

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The underlying meaning isn’t one that you need to be a committed Sussex cryptologist to interpret.

Harry and Meghan might have gleefully dumped most of the vestiges of official royal life in a large dumpster and moved on to find their freedom and drink oat milk to their hearts’ content but with this card, they are borrowing heavily from the royal playbook. The message is clear - all that chatter, that gossipy hubbub about their relationship?

Psshaw.

The Duke and Duchess of Suessx’s marriage is as rock solid as their granite countertops and all that scurrilous noise about their union is bunkum.

It’s a point you would think they have just as easily made with only one sweet, coupley hot of themselves, yet instead we are treated to three happy clappy images of the duke and duchess, all taken in August during their look-we-made-it-ourselves ‘royal’ tour of Colombia.

It all adds up to quite the pointed rejoinder from the Sssexes after three highly unusual, exceptional months. You have to rewind all the way to September 13 for the last time that the Sussexes have been seen together in public.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have said they’re at a “crossroads” with their work in a joint public appearance for the first time in months.

The couple in Cartagena, Colombia. Picture: Eric Charbonneau/Archewell Foundation via Getty Images

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Meanwhile, in that time, individually, Harry has travelled to New York, twice, London, Lesotho, and headed off three and a half hours away from home for surfing lessons, while Meghan has attended the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital Gala, undertaken an Archewell Foundaton event with tweens, gone to a haircare products launch, announced her investment in said haircare products, been photographed merrily celebrating at a baby shower, and helped honour Lili’s godfather Tyler Perry.

This transition to double track public outings did not go unnoticed and spawned no end of stories, only some written by me.

Harry himself had a right larf about the speculation when he spoke at the DealBook conference, saying “Apparently we’ve bought or moved house 10, 12 times. We’ve apparently divorced maybe 10, 12 times as well. So it’s just like, what?’

“It’s hard to keep up with, but that’s why you just sort of ignore it.”

‘Ignoring it’ they might be yet someone would seem to have decided to deliver a well timed reminder about just how happy the Sussexes are together and living behind their high hedges and ranks of bodyguards.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex seen at the Unidad Recreativa El Vallado on August 18, 2024 in Cali, Colombia. Picture: Eric Charbonneau/Archewell Foundation via Getty Images

Harry and Meghan’s decision include not only these warm shots of themselves but to share a highly unusual pic of them with their young children translates into a quite the handy bit of PR manoeuvring after a few months that have seen them buffeted by terrible press and having to bear up after release another dud of a Netflix series.

In September a dozen current and former Archewell staffers spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, with one source close to the Sussexes saying, “Everyone’s terrified of Meghan…And she’s just terrible.”

Another source told the outlet, “She’s absolutely relentless. She marches around like a dictator in high heels, fuming and barking orders. I’ve watched her reduce grown men to tears.”

Further reports went on to label the duchess a “demon” who had “psycho moments” as an employer (The Daily Beast) while elsewhere it was claimed that in Hollywood, there is “genuine dislike and distrust towards them” (The Daily Mail).

That died down only for their latest Netflix show, Harry’s Polo, to debut to a stunningly underwhelming critical and popular response.

The reviews were biting; the world, totally disinterested. Labelled a “tedious inside look” and something “feels like a spoof documentary” about “the stupidest, most obnoxious sport known to humanity” by reviewers, the five-parter promptly disappeared without a trace, failing to crack the top ten.

Did the Sussexes realise they had a turkey on their hands? The launch of the show did not see them either do a single interview, despite serving as executive producers and the nearly total lack of promotion by their celebrity supporters and Netflix was hardly a ringing endorsement.

In the wake of Polo’s release, a Californian source told the Daily Mail’s Alison Boshoff that “People say Netflix are exhausted. It’s so much work with her and, bluntly, the “deliverable” does not seem to be worth it.’

The future of their Netflix deal now reportedly rests on Meghan’s unnamed entertaining series that will debut in the first few months of next year.

“Her show will have to be an enormous hit to turn around their deal and their reputations in this town,” another entertainment executive told Boshoff.

But Hollywood is a town that loves a comeback story and a reinvention and at least with that sweet shot of Harry, Meghan, Arhcie and Lili shot the Sussexes have sorted out a happily ever after.

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

Originally published as Harry, Meghan release unseen pictures in marriage fightback