‘Repeatedly unlucky’: Duke and Duchess’ bizarre claim revealed

As the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s careers well and truly hit the skids, it’s clear they are still succumbing to a very bad habit.

COMMENT

When you get right down to it, the monarchy is an institution fundamentally predicated on luck.

Luck that Alfred the Great managed to repel the Viking invaders, luck that George I got to be King despite being 52nd in line to the throne (he was the closest Protestant, according to the rules) and “luck” that in the 20th century, Edward VIII fancied rusticating in France with couture-clad icicle Wallis Simpson rather than ever having to open the Norfolk Show.

Now, his great-grand nephew is reportedly blaming this very thing – luck, or lack thereof – for the fact that he and wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex’s careers are looking like a busted flush.

It’s misfortune and bad timing, supposedly, that are wholly responsible for why the couple are not being fêted by Hollywood as the most exciting talents to arrive since Scorcese got his first Super8.

A quick recap.

Harry and Meghan apparently think their problems come down to being ‘repeatedly unlucky’. Picture: Matt Dunham/Pool/AFP

First, the Sussexes and Spotify parted ways in a humiliating turn of events for the couple, who had promised they would be making “programming that uplifts and entertains audiences”.

Instead, Meghan tried to save feminism by making word-shaped air in the vicinity of women with much more successful careers than her own, and Harry tried to get the two greatest threats to world peace to talk about not being hugged enough as kids.

The next career blow came when reports hit suggesting that Netflix is unlikely to renew their contract in two short years, meaning that they could lose up to a reported $76 million in unpaid fees. (Nothing like knowing you are going to be dumped in advance).

Then the duke and duchess, still relatively fresh transplants in California, were deemed “flops” by no less than the venerable Wall Street Journal.

Then, to just really cap things off, they were labelled “f**king grifters” by Spotify’s Bill Simmons before Hollywood bigwig Jeremy Zimmer told the Cannes Lions festival: “Turns out Meghan Markle was not a great audio talent or necessarily any kind of talent. You know, just because you’re famous doesn’t make you great at something”.

It is at this point that most people would retreat back into the comfort and privacy of their estate the size of a boutique hotel to do a spot of self-reflection in, say, their yoga room or Japanese-style teahouse.

Eyes closed, their favourite whale birthing track playing, the air perfumed with organic ylang-ylang, you might expect a couple of adults big on self-actualising and creating the space to be their authentic, caring selves should be willing to face some hard truths. To learn. To grow. And then to tediously journal about it until it was time for their next colonic.

Au contraire.

The duke and duchess have been branded ‘flops’ by the Wall Street Journal. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images for the Invictus Games Foundation

They were also labelled “f**king grifters” by Spotify’s Bill Simmons. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images

According to the Daily Mail, the Sussexes are not taking any responsibility for the souring of their corporate marriages or assuming that uncomfortable thing, accountability – ironically, one of the very things they keep demanding of the royal family.

Instead, they are blaming bad luck.

Columnist Alison Boshoff has reported the Sussexes “are convinced their downfall was nothing to do with them” and that she has been told they “both feel they have been ‘repeatedly unlucky’ with other world events”.

“Repeatedly unlucky”, like Prince Philip’s declining health in 2021 which Boshoff claims the couple felt “overshadowed” their Oprah interview. So … why go through with it, given it was clear that the normally plucky Duke of Edinburgh probably wasn’t going to pull through this time?

“Repeatedly unlucky”, like, as Boshoff writes, “attempts to launch themselves as global do-

gooders, [which] were severely impacted by the pandemic”. Except that, years on, they have not undertaken one single, solitary overseas humanitarian trip.

“Repeatedly unlucky”, like the passing of the late Queen last year, which they reportedly believe “impacted” the “launch of Meghan’s podcast”.

What’s that? Three weeks worth of episodes were already out when Her late Majesty sadly left us?

And “repeatedly unlucky”, like the streaming industry taking a huge stock market hit in the last 18 months. The sticking point here – as Boshoff reports – “Those familiar with the situation say it was the lack of content, not the podcast viewing figures, which was the real disappointment for Spotify”.

The couple think ‘they have been repeatedly unlucky with other world events’, such as the deaths of the Queen and Prince Philip. Picture: Tim Graham/Getty Images Daniel Leal/AFP

Damn you fate (shakes fist at sky) for stymieing such talents.

What is so remarkable here is that, if what Boshoff reports is correct, Harry and Meghan still cannot accept their culpability for their own lives and how they turn out. When will they actually metabolise and accept the fact they are not wholly blameless in the various messes that seem to follow them?

When the duke was busy haw`king his tell-all Spare like a Tupperware salesperson with a quota to meet, he told ITV’s Tom Bradby that he had “continued … to ask … what we got wrong, so that we can address it and apologise for those things. But every single time I’ve asked, I’ve received nothing in response”.

How can any adult with all their critical faculties be such a dingbat?

Maybe the Palace has been too busy trying to shut their gaping mouths to “respond” as they attempt to wrap their heads around someone complaining about having their privacy breached – and then writing a tell-all about his family that traduces their privacy – and putting out a six-hour TV series which includes photos taken inside royal properties such as Buckingham Palace, reportedly without regal permission.

Harry has spoken repeatedly, to his credit, about having therapy, but what I find strange is that therapy is not a high-priced way to apportion blame while lying prone on a sofa but a process that demands taking an unflinching and honest look at yourself.

So how can the duke and duchess, at least according to the Mail’s telling, still not get it?

How can they, two expensively-educated adults, still reportedly see the world through such a binary light with no space for nuance or complexity or grey areas? How can they still view their situation so reductively and childishly? Where the only thing that has hampered their ability to wow Hollywood is circumstance; where they were nothing but badly treated by self-serving HRHs who leaked to the ink-stained gorgons of Fleet Street and who failed to appreciate the gift that was Sir and Lady Hug-a-Lot?

The twist here is that Harry and Meghan, in relentlessly casting themselves as martyrs, have actually only ultimately hurt themselves.

Imagine if, in their Netflix “documentary”, they had admitted to some mistakes – for example, if they had said “maybe we should not have taken four private jet flights in 11 days if we want to be hailed as heroes of the climate crisis movement. Our bad”.

It would have made them much more compelling, trustworthy narrators.

For years now, Megxit has been relentlessly read through an overly simplistic lens: Villains or victims; goodies or baddies.

There has always been some idea that you have to pick a side which is miraculously absolved of all blame, while the other party is nothing but ‘orrible and selfish and bad.

As if.

No one is wholly in the right in the same way that no one is wholly in the wrong.

There’s at least a book or a PhD thesis in all of this. The title: 50 Shades Of The Men In Grey.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and freelance writer with 15 years’ experience who has written for some of Australia’s best print and digital media brands.