‘Strange pattern’: Photograph reveals huge Meghan change
One photograph of the Duchess of Sussex contains a huge clue about what is to come for her and husband Prince Harry.
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When Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex stepped onto the red carpet at the Paley Centre in December to honour Tyler Perry, she sparkled. Literally.
Around her neck was nearly nine carats of diamonds, specifically in an at least $34,000 made-to-order tennis necklace.
But that wasn’t the headline that went everywhere. It was the fact that her husband Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex was on the other side of the country in New York.
This glamorous outing was just the latest example of a strange pattern that emerged over the final months of 2024 – the Partition of the Sussexes.
Meet Meghan, Just Meghan. Businesswoman, supposed podcaster, entertaining-show-host-in-the-making and superlative wearer of neutrals.
But one highly conspicuous half of one of the world’s most famous marriages? Publicly, optics-wise? No longer.
Were we to chart the major royal story arcs of 2024 – cancer, more cancer, the so-close-yet-so-far-stuttering of American Riviera Orchard – then the parting of the Sussexes’ public images would have to feature highly.
That picture of Meghan weighed down by all those lovely brilliant baubles doesn’t just tell us a story about a woman making her own way in the world, but sums up the duchess’ transition to an increasingly independent figure.
Did the Sussexes plan it, you have to wonder? Were there meetings and notes and follow up emails and PDF-ed plans to govern this very clear separation of the brands of Meghan and Harry?
This never-seen-before rending of the duke and duchess’ public profiles has a certain strategic ring to it, at least according to a royal friend chit-chattering to People back in October.
“It’s clear that a twin-track approach is evolving,” they said.
Another royal insider told the magazine that the duo has “now hit their stride as individuals – not just as a couple. The Duke appears focused on his patronage work, and the Duchess focused on her entrepreneurial track”.
This change, from coupley cutesyness to more hard-nosed, tactical image projection, sparked wholly inevitable chatter about what might privately be going on in Montecito.
Only hours before Meghan took to that red carpet in December, Harry was mocking speculation about their marriage while at the DealBook summit.
“Apparently we’ve bought or moved house 10, 12 times. We’ve apparently divorced maybe 10, 12 times as well,” he said, laughing.
“It’s hard to keep up with, but that’s why you just sort of ignore it.”
Those words made for some cracking headlines, but they don’t change the fact that the world has stopped seeing the duke and duchess out and about together. No pap shots, no gala events, no awards nights and no charity outings.
If this year has seen Harry return to Original Flavour Harry, the man he was before the Netflixing and the let-me-hit-record-truth-telling, to him being able to spend his days trying to improve the lot of veterans, then it has seen Meghan go in the other direction, soft-launching a new career and new image.
Think less Buckingham Palace and more Warren Buffett; the mother-of-two as a beta Jeff Bezos.
The duchess has clearly moved on from wanting to share and share some more (and some more) about what a rotten bargain that royal caper was, what with those leering press lenses to butting up against the alleged unconscious bias of a family who could not even spell the word if they were paid handsomely.
Hear that? It’s the sound of cash registers being installed in readiness for when her lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard (ARO) is unveiled to the world. The former Suits star might be a duchess, but her newly hatching identity is that of a woman ready to build a thriving business. An empire you say? Why not.
Look no further than the people that Meghan has spent this year hanging out with such as IT Cosmetics founder Jamie Kern Lima, who flew the two of them to the G9 Ventures summer summit, her longtime hairdresser Kadi Lee, whose new Highbrow Hippie hair care range Meghan has invested in, and with fairy godfather Tyler Perry, who has built a $2.2 billion empire.
In August it was revealed that the 43-year-old was moving into the investment space, backing smaller female-founded businesses, having taken a minority stake in the bag brand Cesta Collective.
“Investing in them has helped me line up for this chapter where I’m investing in myself,” she told the New York Times.
(Of her influence, she told the Times: “That’s one of the most powerful things that I’m able to do, and that’s simply wearing, like, an earring”).
The mark that Meghan seems to want to make as 2025 rolls around is that of a woman determined to set out on her own and to build a business that has nothing to do with that red-headed bloke she married or his emotionally repressed rellies.
Good for her.
This makes perfect sense for Harry too. With his wife of six years off earning them a (hopefully) large crust, it frees him up from that job lark and means he doesn’t have to keep wearily selling his same old story to increasingly bored audiences.
Heaven knows his attempts at non-royal adjacent TV producing, with Heart of Invictus and Polo, have flopped like a middle-aged man stumbling off a diving board.
But you know what the Duke of Sussex is good at? Really, really good at? Being Harry. Being a former army captain who cares and cares deeply. You only have to look at his smile when he’s working on behalf of his patronages or meeting Invictus athletes to see him in his element and loving every minute of it.
This change, of Harry and Meghan’s separating their public images and personae to pursue independent projects and to really play to their natural strengths, could end up being a masterstroke.
The Sussex story has a hell of a long way to go yet.
To be continued in 2025 …
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as ‘Strange pattern’: Photograph reveals huge Meghan change
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