‘What the bloody hell happened?’: Meghan and Harry hit by embarrassing new blow

It has been another week of bad news for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as their Hollywood fortunes continue to seriously falter.

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Put away that vast eruption of silk of a gown.

Lock up those oodles of carats of Harry Winston diamonds.

There is no need for a new pair of Aquazurra heels.

In some sort of reverse Cinderella story this week, the news came that a prince and princess will not be going to a particular ball.

Specifically Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and the 75th Emmy Awards, with the nominations for TV’s night of nights coming out and revealing that the couple had missed out on a nod for their Netflix series.

HBO’s 100 Foot Wave, National Geographic’s Secrets of the Elephants and the incredible 1619 Project were all among those recognised by the awards, but the Sussexes’ imaginatively named Harry & Meghan did not get a look in.

This buh-bow bad news is just the latest in a string of blows, snubs and denouncements that have buffeted the pair of late.

And so here we are, only three and a half years after they made a break for it, with the couple’s Hollywood careers appearing to have entered the Anna Nicole Smith phase: Concerning. Messy. Fraught.

The Sussexes’ imaginatively named Harry & Meghan did not get an Emmy look in. Picture: Kate Green/Getty Images

but it’s just the latest blow for the couple. Picture: Netflix

Still, the failure of the duke and duchess’ Netflix magnum opus of lip-jutting hurt feelings to score a nomination can’t detract from the incredible, eye-popping, record-setting popularity of the show, right? After all, hot on the heels of the release of the first “volume” in early December last year, out came the streamer ballyhooing that it was Netflix’s most-watched documentary debut in its first week, racking up 81.55 million hours watched. Break open the bubbly!

And yet here comes a second new blow to boot, because it turns out that, in a cruel irony, the Sussexes’ nearly six hour long series is reportedly not the most-watched doco on the platform – it’s the second.

They are streaming spares.

Oh fate, you can be a cruel mistress.

This week, The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes reported that The Tinder Swindler is understood to hold the number one spot as Netflix’s biggest nonfiction offering. 

In April this year, Netflix revealed that Swindler racked up 166 million hours watched in its first 28 days.

It’s here I would suggest you pack a lunch, grab a drink bottle and wear comfortable shoes, because recapping even just the last two months of Sussex-related hits is an endurance sport.

Things started to go off-piste for the couple when, in May, the phrase “near catastrophic car chase” entered the Sussex lexicon.

On what should have been a shiny night about Meghan’s shiny new award, instead that good news story was swamped by claims that the duke and duchess had been “relentlessly pursued” by a “ring of highly aggressive paparazzi”.

It was all very dramatic, except this particular characterisation of events did not quite tally with the New York Police Department and the city mayor’s accounts.

Then in June came the news that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were parting ways with Spotify in a divorce about as amicable as Liz Taylor’s splits from husbands three to five.

It was adios to whatever portion of their reported $29 million contract they had yet to be paid, and adios to the gravitas that podcasting had offered them.

What other entertainment format would happily pay for the duchess to spend 12 hours of airtime offering up lines like: “Some days I have complete clarity and the next day I feel … different”?

Or what about: “Are you being a person in the world in the most nuanced and real way?” or “I can’t function today without being present”? or “Beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing there is a field”?

In the two and a half years of the Spotify/Sussex union, the only series they managed to put out was Meghan’s Archetypes, the bastard child of a first year gender studies reader and a 2014 issue People.

The couple have faced setback after embarrassing setback this year. Picture: Matt Dunham/Pool/AFP

Bill Simmons, Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetisation, was quick to pile on, calling the Sussexes “f***ing grifters”, a phrase that some enterprising, malicious sort had probably slapped on merch within hours of it coming out.

“I gotta get drunk one night and tell the story of the Zoom I had with Harry to try and help him with a podcast idea. It’s one of my best stories,” he also said.

Stop here. Take a sip of water. Stretch. We have more ground to cover.

Then came pieces about the Sussexes’ work in Bloomberg and then the Wall Street Journal, hardly British tabloids that could be dismissively waved off as having some malign agenda.

The former came out to report that Harry had come up with a podcast idea so ludicrous it defies the bounds of language, namely, that he would interview homicidal warmonger Vladimir Putin and wannabe coup-plotter Donald Trump about their childhoods.

If this had come to pass, it would have been like pitting Betty White against Mike Tyson in the ring for a bare knuckle stoush.

The Journal also reported that Netflix, the Sussexes’ number one cash cow, is “unlikely to renew” their contract when it comes to an end.

Next it was The Sun’s turn, reporting that about $76 million left of the couple’s $145 million TV deal was on the line. An industry source told the paper: “The remainder of the deal relies on them producing those good ideas. The deal’s continually under review which is normal for ones of this magnitude”.

Then, when much of the TV world met in Cannes in late June to charge bottles of Domaine Tempier rosé to their expense accounts and enjoy a spot of Côte d’Azur industry onanism, up popped United Talent Agency CEO Jeremy Zimmer to join the Sussex melée.

He said during an interview: “Turns out Meghan Markle was not a great audio talent, or necessarily any kind of talent. And, you know, just because you’re famous doesn’t make you great at something”.

A brief bright spot appeared in July when it was announced that the Hollywood Critics Association’s TV Award had nominated Harry & Meghan for Best Streaming Nonfiction Series.

But appearances aren’t always what they might appear – the Association only dates back to 2016 and was originally known as the Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society.

This particular awards show has only been around since 2021. We are not exactly talking about a prestigious outfit here.

So, to put it mildly, what the bloody hell happened?

Back in 2020, the Sussexes were busy signing so many deals they were probably getting hand cramps from having to squiggle their signatures so often. They seemed like sure-fire, can’t-lose, savvy bets for the biggest companies in Hollywood.

After all, the duke was charming, the duchess had had a professional Hollywood career and was a total stunner, and together they were a Fairytale Couple™. Add that to the fact they were covered head-to-toe in royal stardust, their narrative arc was can’t-look-away-addictive and they had just pulled off the most sensational getaway since someone decided to get out of Alcatraz.

Now if that wasn’t made-for-TV (or podcast) manna, then I don’t know what could or would be.

Spare was a global bestseller. Picture: Khaled Desouki/AFP

And yet, a couple of years on, the end result was a TV show that felt like being forced to sit through a recently divorced friend’s drinks, having to listen to a never-ending litany of hurt feelings and perceived slights.

TV moments like the Duchess of Sussex recreating a curtsy for Her late Majesty were nails-on-the-chalkboard grating and the fact that, say, the producers had edited Queen Elizabeth’s famous 1947 speech from South Africa did not do them any favours.

And while friends and family of Meghan’s seemed to be queuing up to offer emotional defences of a woman they cast as a cross between Mother Teresa, Rosa Luxembourg and a Disney Princess, only one chum of Harry’s could be corralled to testify for the cameras on his behalf.

Their greatest resource, their greatest and now apparently only asset, was Their Story, which they bafflingly gave away for free to Oprah Winfrey in 2021 and then just regurgitated, but in slower motion, for Netflix.

Then came the mother lode of The Story in January this year, when Harry’s autobiography Spare landed with all the subtlety of a percussion grenade.

But Their Story is now spent; that vein of content has been strip-mined, excavated and sucked dry, leaving them with only their “talent” to fall back on.

What has become apparent since then is that there is obviously a Grand Canyon-sized chasm between their global celebrity and their creative goods.

Their fame might outstrip that of Prime Ministers, corporations and half the membership of the G20, but that does not automatically equate to sure-fire success.

Really, though, who wants to dress up and go to the Emmys anyway?

Not when you could stay home and catch up on the 100 Foot Wave.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’

experience with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.