‘Harry who?’: New photos expose Duke of Sussex’s awkward new reality

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s recent tour of Colombia has seen the former army captain earn a humbling new position.

Prince Harry played second fiddle to wife Meghan during their Colombia tour. Pictures: X, Getty

In 2019, when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son Archie was born, they had the option of giving him one of the Duke’s courtesy titles.

These days, Prince Harry might have some new ones, like Spotify’s Least Productive Hire Ever and Netflix’s Highest Paid Horsey TV Show Producer, but he is still also the Earl of Dumbarton and the Baron of Kilkeel.

Today, let us ponder the deep and meaningful question of, has he just earned himself another one?

Just call him the Deputy Duke or the Backseat Baron, with the 39-year-old having seemingly happily assumed the role of perfectly agreeable second fiddle to wife Meghan this week.

The Duke and Duchess are now back in the United States after having staged a four-day sortie to Colombia where they got to briefly cosplay being real working HRHs again, hitting the same high notes of a real royal tour with all the predictability of a primary school recorder band doing Greensleeves.

However, something unusual did come out of the trip – the deputisation of Harry to supporting star status.

From the moment that the Sussexes stepped out in Bogotá to meet Vice President Francia Márquez, it was clear that Meghan was the main attraction.

‘It was clear that Meghan was the main attraction’. Picture: Diego Cuevas/Getty Images

Harry seems to have been demoted to ‘supporting star status’. Picture: Raul Arboleda/AFP

Right off the bat, on day one, Márquez made it clear that it was the Duchess whom she had originally invited, saying that after seeing the couple’s Netflix series, “It motivated me to say, ‘This is a woman who deserves to visit our country and share her story’.”

“Woman”, you will notice, not “couple”.

The Vice President then went on to say that the Duchess had originally been approached to be part of the Day of Afro-descendant Women in 2023, but “she couldn’t come … Since then, we have been working for a year to make this important visit happen”.

Harry who?

As the days progressed during the trip, so too did the tour become even more of a Meghan-centric love-in.

The only journalist accredited to cover the trip, Harper’s Bazaar’s culture editor Bianca Betancourt, filed three stories, as far as can be seen on the website, of which one was an overview of the trip and the other two rhapsodically focused on the former Suits star.

(“Duchess Meghan Is Fabulous in a Cerulean Oscar de la Renta Gown at Luncheon Hosted by Colombia&’s VP” and “Duchess Meghan Calls This Era of Her Life Her ‘Chapter of Joy’ at a Summit for Afro-Colombian Women”).

Then, over on the Sussexes’ own Archewell Foundation website, of the six photos that have been posted of the tour, three prominently feature Meghan being adored by various groups and Harry only features in two group shots. (Well, there is another one where we get a blurry part of his head, but …)

Meanwhile, of the selfies from the trip that have cropped up on social media, the majority star the Duchess with an occasional Harry in the background.

Prince Harry played second fiddle to wife Meghan during their Colombia tour. Picture: X

Don’t get the wrong idea here – I think this is all wonderful stuff. If anyone has any doubt about Harry’s feminist credentials, then voilà!

The 39-year-old is not known for always making the most sensible of decisions, but on this front, let us join together and do some congratulatory cheering. In the fight for true gender equality in the world, it gladdens me no end that the Duke of Sussex is firmly on the side of the angels and history.

Harry is never going to win any awards for being the most dutiful son or the most dependable brother, but as an exemplary and supportive husband? Someone better start engraving the man’s name on the front of the trophy.

That is, unlike King Charles who, back in the day, struggled when his own wife Diana, Princess of Wales eclipsed him when it came to the public’s favour. One of the approximately 826 problems in their marriage, not least because the Princess had no interest in the poetry of Goethe or harpsichord recitals, was the Prince’s reported jealousy of his wife’s popularity.

Early on in their marriage, a scene played out during a tour of Wales that would set the tone for their at times prickly working relationship. As the couple worked rope lines on opposite sides of the street, the crowd clamoured and called out for Diana and then reacted badly when they got Charles instead.

Colombia’s Vice President Francia Márquez ‘made it clear that it was the duchess whom she had originally invited’. Picture: Eric Charbonneau for Archewell via Getty Images

As a photographer covering that trip later recounted to biographer Tina Brown: “They’d all be going ‘Oh no!’ because they’d got him”. A palace official saw a mopey Charles “kicking a pebble around” who complained, “they don’t want to see me”.

Diana would later tell old friend James Colthurst that she “really got it in the neck from Charles” after that particular Wales trip.

The moral of the story is, Charles’ flimsy ego struggled in the face of his wife’s success. It gives me no end of pleasure to report that Harry has not inherited this self-absorbed tendency from his father. (Nor his appetite for the harpsichord either).

Harry would appear to have just taken great pride and immense joy in Meghan’s prominence.

Instead, if you look at any of the photos of him in Colombia (well, those that a Getty snapper was allowed to take), the duke tends to be grinning like a man who has just won Powerball and Lotto on the same day, which it can be argued, he has.

As he said during the Sussexes’ 2017 engagement interview of meeting his now-wife for the very first time, “I was like, ‘OK, well, I’m really gonna have to up my game!’”

There are bigger questions to come out of the Sussexes’ tour of Colombia – like “why?” and “really?” and “huh?” (translation – “what did this trip actually achieve for anyone aside from a surge in Colombian security services spending on overtime?”) but that’s for another day.

In 2024, lest anyone decide to amend the “Titles and honours” section of Harry’s Wikipedia page, we could add “Staunch Feminist”.

Pip, pip, hurrah!

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 who?’: New photos expose Duke of Sussex’s awkward new reality