Seven Times, Seven Days: Prince Harry’s solo outings spark speculation and concern
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have thrown out their standard playbook and are trying something completely new.
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The royal family game has always required counting: Wives, Henry’s, James’s, Edwards,
Charles, horses, houses, times that Prince Philip would offend an entire subcontinent in an afternoon. And so, more of that today. Get out two hands and a couple of feet to keep a tally of today’s situation involving another Henry, specifically Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and the first and only Meghan, obviously the Duchess of Sussex.
The duke has just made his seventh appearance in seven days without his wife. And with his appearance on Monday night at the WellChild Awards in London, it brings to 20 the number of major solo outings the Sussexes have totted up between them in only the last 18 months.
Just in case this did not constitute enough of a trend, last week it was announced that Harry is off to South Africa and Lesotho soon for what will be his first overseas individual royal tour (and not, say, trip back to the UK) since entering the state of connubial bliss.
Call it a turning point, a shift, a re-prioritising of values-lead directional work but it’s hard to argue with the numbers. Increasingly, in a professional capacity, the Sussexes’ two roads have diverged in a yellow wood. (With great apologies to Robert Frost and all poetry fans.) This most recent spate began last week when Harry travelled to New York for a series of events and speeches seemingly geared at reminding the world that before he was the world’s most famous Palace whistleblower he did Good Works for a living.
In the Big Apple, the duke proceeded to give five speeches and pop up on Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show trying his hand at a comedy bit, the bizarre stringing together of high- minded talk fests and undergrad antics making for strange bedfellows. (Anyone else have a strange taste in their mouth?) Then he flew to the UK for the annual WellChild Awards, with him having worked with charity for seriously ill children since 2007.
So, seven outings, seven days, no Meghan. Meanwhile, offstage, the chorus wonders, where is the duchess? Rewind a scootch further, to September 23, and it was only Harry who turned up at Kevin Costner’s One805Live! fundraiser even though last year both of the Sussexes attended. (Meghan was reportedly sick this time around.) All the while, the last few weeks have seen Brand Sussex buffeted by a series of highly damaging stories from US publications which have alleged that the duchess is a “demon”, “a dictator”, “just terrible”, and “a classic narcissist” who had “psycho moments” as a boss.
Therefore, seeing a smiley, bright-eyed and with the good-vibes-turned-up-to-11 duke and duchess together in New York, last week, the pair putting on a united front, outwardly unperturbed by such scurrilous sniping would have helped counter the burbling crisis.
But no. Instead it was only Harry who paled around with Bill and Hillary Clinton and Queen Mathilde of Belgium over the course of the week which is a departure from the pattern we have seen in the past.
By contrast, in 2021 it was both of the Sussexes who travelled to New York for him to give a speech at the UN with the duchess in supportive, proud spouse mode. Then, it was the duke’s turn in 2023 when his wife was presented with a Ms Award and then again in March this year when the duchess took to the stage at the SXSW festival with Harry devotedly watching on.
This time around, when Harry took to various Big Apple stages for events including a Diana Awards outing, The Halo Trust, Travelyst, his Parents’ Network and the Clinton Global Initiative it was with Meghan, I’m assuming, back in Montecito priming the almond milk pump. What is noticeable over the last 18 months is that while the duke and duchess continue to religiously undertake certain engagements together, specifically those tied to Harry’s Invictus Games (successful; rousing; laudable) and their Archewell Foundation, we have seen an uptick in high-profile independent outings.
Let’s review. In March 2023 Harry made a surprise appearance at the High Court in London for one of his series of court cases against UK news outlets over alleged hacking, in May was back for the coronation, returned in June to take to the witness box, attended the WellChild Awards in September, and flew to Austin, Texas for the Formula One Grand Prix in October.
This year, February saw him make a dash back to the UK to see King Charles after His Majesty revealed he has cancer, pop over to Las Vegas to present an NFL Awards, in April was in San Francisco for BetterUp’s Uplift summit (he’s their Chief Impact Officer, a job title that sheds no actual light on what he does for them besides lend them his august name) and in May flew to London for a St Paul’s service to mark ten years of Invictus.
Last month there were reports suggesting Harry might have had a boys’ weekend away to mark his 40th birthday, possibly overseas. Now we have his New York sortie and his latest London visit.
It’s not just Harry, with Meghan having flown to the G9 investment summit in the Hamptons in August with IT Cosmetics co-founder Jamie Kern Lima and with having gone skiing with friends in Utah in February, though it’s unclear if Harry was there too.
This same pattern has also held true for red carpet outings. It was only Meghan who did the red carpet ‘step and repeat’ posing at Variety’s Power of Women last October and it was only Harry who turned up to receive the honour (you there, stop giggling) at the Legends of Aviation Awards in January. (Though in July, Meghan was front row when Harry highly controversially collected his Pat Tillman award at the ESPYs.)
There have been notable joint outings too, mind you. There were Invictus-related trips together to Dusselforf and to Vancouver, twice, along with them attending the Bob Marley movie premiere in Jamaica in January, skiing in Whistler in February, holidays in St Vincent and the Grenadines and Costa Rica, some polo-ing in Florida in April, and their high-visibility replica ‘royal’ tours of Nigeria and Colombia.
In the best style of 90s Demtel ads, but wait, there’s more! This church and state divvying up continues over into their commercial work, their last joint paid-for outing their 2022 Netflix buffet of keenly felt-feelings and iPhone photos. Meghan now has a Hollywood uber agent (though that union has yet to translate into any major new projects), a deal with a women-led podcasting company, American Riviera Orchard, lifestyle business that is yet to quite take flight (a ducal dodo?) and a forthcoming entertaining TV show.
And Harry? He’s made his own TV series, namely one about polo, his favourite Saturday afternoon pastime aside from drawing moustaches all over Encyclopedia Britannica entries for the House of Windsor at the Montecito public library. Tom Sykes, writing in the Times, said that according to “sources close to Harry, it’s quite clear that he wants to leave behind the celebrity nonsense … recover his reputation as an honest dealer and become known as a serious philanthropic player.
“Sources have also been clear to me that Harry does not want his old royal life back: he adores the California sunshine and treasures his wife and family. But he undoubtedly would like to reoccupy the space he briefly held on stage [in New York]”. And what that sounds like is that Harry and Meghan have gone all Roman on us and are embracing the concept of dividing and ruling. The duchess can hustle and build her business, thus keeping them in raw nuts and mortgage payments, while the duke can spend his days double-checking how many ‘s’ there are in compassion as he writes his speeches.
I have no idea how you say ‘playing to one’s strengths’ in Latin but that. Which leaves us with another, final number: Two. The arms of Sussex Corp. that are emerging, the charity and the commercial, the Hollywood hustle and the humanitarian. Smart, I reckon, very smart.
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.
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