Prince Harry’s incredible “disappearing act”
The Duke of Sussex’s public footprint is a shadow of what it once was and there’s a huge reason why he’s keeping on the down low.
COMMENT
Is it harder to spy in California the Dusky Warbler or The Duke of Sussex? One’s a rarely sighted migratory bird and the other is a blood prince but it’s tricky to spot either of them these days.
So far 2025 feels like it could be one of the quietest ever with Harry’s public footprint seeming to be on the wane.
Consider: In 2019, his last year of official royalling, he undertook 201 engagements.
This year he has undertaken charitable outings on about 17 days as far as is publicly known and at the time of writing. (That includes the ten days of the Invictus Games and on seven others including, for example, him discreetly thanking volunteer firefighters during the LA blazes.)
The duke and the Dusky Warbler – neither are California natives and neither can be seen all that much.
Back in 2022 the duke was being asked to address the UN General Assembly; now he is being tasked with holding his wife Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex’s iPhone.
The 40-year-old might contain multitudes but he appears to be increasingly keeping himself on the down low, aside from his willingness to still lob an occasional grenade over the palace walls.
By and large the most common place to catch a glimpse of the duke these days is the duchess’ Instagram feed thanks to her muscular posting regimen. In recent weeks we’ve been treated to seeing Harry’s joy at a Disneyland jaunt with their kids and his unfortunately Dadish dance moves.
But while Meghan is busy beavering away at building an empire (something her in-laws know a brutal thing or two about) off the back of tea bags and rose petals, selling out her second drop of As Ever products and launching her own rosé, Harry circa 2025 remains something of a blank.
While the duchess is transitioning and evolving her brand into that of go-getting entrepreneur, it feels like duke is trapped in something of an identity crisis, stuck in a reputational no man’s land.
It’s easier to define Harry today by what he is not.
Royal? He might still have his titles but what are they but shiny appendages he can have printed on his reams of unused letterhead but the royal family appear to want to have about as much to do with him as with zero proof gin.
His own father King Charles won’t speak to him, as he himself told the BBC in May, giving the British broadcaster an explosive interview and laying bare the full extent of the family destruction wrought by the last few years.
His brother Prince William, formerly “burning” about his brother’s energetic dishing of Windsor dirt is now ‘indifferent’ towards the duke, the Sunday Times revealed this week.
His coterie of cousins are no longer photographed in his orbit and we are coming up, in September, on it being three years since the late Queen’s funeral and the last time the Duke of Sussex was seen with anyone who knows the Buckingham Palace Wi-Fi code.
But royalty you might say. That’s defined by service. By steadfast doing and by helping those less fortunate with a certain indefatigable, unflagging Blitz-era spirit. Harry is by all accounts a man who cares and cares deeply, with him coming up on him having worked with some of his philanthropic organisations for two decades.
Unfortunately he has faced controversy and setbacks on this front.
In late March he and co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho resigned from their charity, Sentebale, along with the entirety of the board, as part of a dispute with the chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka. She later accused Harry and the organisation of “bullying and harassment at scale”. The UK’s Charity Commission is investigating and Harry has spoken about his ‘heartbreak’ over the situation.
In May, the charity African Parks, with which Harry has been involved since 2016, acknowledged that rangers employed by the organisation had committed “human rights abuses” against indigenous people in the Congo.
He has continued with this longtime associations, like speaking about mental health at the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit in December, supporting The Diana Awards in Las Vegas in May, and flying more than 10,000km to give a speech about his sustainable travel initiative Travelyst at a summit in China the same month.
None of it really managed to make any sort of bigger splash or was particularly noticed by the wider world.
The shining star in the duke’s philanthropic quiver is the Invictus Games, the sporting event for wounded current and veteran service personnel that is the definition of ‘life-changing’.
The Games’ ongoing success reflects what Harry can pull off – but he has not launched or done anything that even vaguely matches up to this since landing Stateside in 2020 and learning how to mispronounce ‘tomato’.
Unlike last year, the Sussexes have not taken themselves off for any sort of DIY ‘royal’ overseers tour either, visiting Nigeria and Colombia in 2024.
Nor does Harry appear to be a paid worker these days. No podcasts, books, TV series, docos, films or even his own branded line of ducally-approved creatine seem to be in the pipeline.
(Lucky those As Ever bits keep selling out.) With his story told, his family trauma catharted, and Oprah no longer out on the porch with a camera crew, what comes next?
I suppose there’s always bird watching. His country might no longer want him but the Dusky Warbler? Why not.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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