Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have a sad habit of cosplaying as working royals
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex might have built new lives in California but there is one hangover from their royal careers they can’t kick.
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If ever there was a group who needed an ultra-secret support group, whose monthly meetings were, say, held in a private Aspen ski chalet only accessible by helicopter or on a Caribbean island that required a speed boat and crack former SAS officers to get one there, it’s exiled or former royals.
They are a pitiful lot and could probably do with a bit of group sharing.
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York will slap her name on anything from small appliances to tea bags to Mills & Boon books in the never-ending, ignominious quest to make a buck. Princess Märtha Louise of Norway is no longer allowed to represent the royal house after she got engaged to a self-styled shaman who charges $1500 for private sessions and believes in “spirit hacking”.
Prince Joachim of Denmark, his nation’s spare, has been posted to Washington in a pretty obvious bid to keep him and his own chuntering resentment at his decidedly second-class treatment away from the heir and his cracking Australian wife.
And of course there is no greater example of relegated, also-ran royals than Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
This week, new photos came out of the couple and looking at them, one thing was crystal clear: Like a dumpee after a bad break-up who can’t stop listening to Adele, they haven’t been able to move on.
Peel back the layers on their US life – the $2490 Hermès blankets and the Netflix deal and the fact that they can borrow a cup of stevia from Oprah when they run out – and the sad fact is their lives today are not much more than an inferior substitute version of their royal one.
When will the Duke and Duchess of Sussex kick their habit of persistently play-acting at still being frontline members of The Firm?
Take this week’s outing when the Sussexes marked Mental Health Awareness Month by going to talk to some teenagers, taking a photographer along with them to handily capture it all for their website.
Except for the fact that this took place in Santa Barbara and not Surrey, this is nearly a carbon copy of a classic official palace engagement.
In fact, only a day later, Kate, the Princess of Wales marked Mental Health Week by going to talk to some teenagers, taking along the press to handily capture it all.
(And before anyone excitedly tries to claim that the Princess was copying the Sussexes, her outing would have been planned months ago. Royal outings require the same sort of preparation as battlefield manoeuvres, given the security and logistic arrangements that need to be put into place.)
These two outings are nearly comically similar, which only highlights the degree to which Harry and Meghan look like they are trying to recreate and mimic working royal life.
Zoom out, step back and squint at the Sussexes’ new ‘free’ US life: Take away their tiresome potshot-taking at The Firm, take away their Netflix and Spotify deals, and what is actually that different about what they are doing to the left-behind royal family?
Meghan recorded a podcast series last year which was proof that even having a roster of celebrity guests wasn’t enough to keep subscribers listening. Both Kate and Prince William have done podcasts. A number of times.
Harry likes to talk about the environment, telling the UN last year “our world is on fire”.
Well, his brother currently runs probably the highest-profile, deepest-pocketed environmental initiative going.
Meghan wrote a children’s book. So has King Charles. (It’s actually very sweet.)
What revolutionary or outside-the-box or audacious things have the Sussexes done with their ‘freedom’ and new lives besides turning royal-baiting into California’s newest micro-industry?
Aside from occasionally straying into the political realm, like throwing their weight behind US President Joe Biden’s campaign and Meghan making a few phone calls in support of paid parental leave, now they are just a pair of nude hose and an old Etonian aide away from doing pretty much exactly what they were doing in the “before” times.
Even though they can set their own path and chart their own course these days, instead they have followed the tried and true (and tired) Buckingham Palace playbook as if they nicked a copy on their way out the door and are ticking things off one by one. (Even if their copy is a bit watermarked after that time Queen Camilla took it to read in the bath.)
Speeches? Done. Sombre military outings? Indeed. Doing candid-talking-to-the-youth events that are cracking PR? Check. Gussying themselves up for glam red carpet outings? Of course.
Visiting a baby charity, worrying about homelessness and supporting organisations that help those who don’t have enough to eat? Yes, yes and yes for not only the Waleses – but the Sussexes too.
What it looks like now is that the Duke and Duchess’ vision of their brave new lives is them just copying and pasting archetypical royal outings, the sort of tentpole do-goodery of the crown, and transplanting it to California.
It’s all just so very … boring. Say what you will about Harry and Meghan, and I have been wont to do exactly that, but the couple used to be exciting. They had ideas! Creativity! Those idiotic bananas! They might have missed as many shots as those that hit the net (am I using that sporting terminology right?) but they brought a certain degree of creativity and chutzpah in their approach.
One of the most powerful and best royal moments in years, if not decades, was in September 2019.
Meghan gave a speech standing on a tree stump at Nyanga township in Cape Town saying, “While I am here with my husband as a member of the royal family, I want you to know that for me I am here with you as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a woman of colour and as your sister.”
Chills.
When the Sussexes were on their working royal game they weren’t just good or great – they were exceptional.
So, when the great Megxit depth charge went off in early 2020, it looked like the smart money was on them taking all that ingenuity and pep and doing something really interesting. In the immortal words of Bob Sinclar: “World, hold on.”
Except all of that potential seems to have evaporated somewhere over the Atlantic and right now they are trying to cosplay being senior working members of the royal family against the backdrop of TMZ’s cameras and mortgage repayments.
Harry and Meghan – but him especially – have lost so much in recent years. Surely the silver lining in all this or at least one of them is that they can do exactly what they want now, uninhibited, unfettered and unbound by palace directives or rules. Why, I wonder, haven’t they?
While I leave you to ponder that, I have to go.
I’m off to pitch a reality show to Netflix that would star Fergie, Harry, Meghan, Märtha Louise and Shaman Durek, and Prince Joachim and his French, former marketing gal wife Princess Marie, all left on a tropical island with only a box of matches and one magnum of Krug between them.
Ratings. Gold.
Daniela Elser is writer, editor and royal commentator working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
Originally published as Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have a sad habit of cosplaying as working royals
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