Why Netflix has buyers remorse

The royal(ish) couple actually need all that family drama

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS - APRIL 17: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend the Athletics Competition during day two of the Invictus Games The Hague 2020 at Zuiderpark on April 17, 2022 in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images for the Invictus Games Foundation)

The royal(ish) couple actually need all that family drama.

You can't be half pregnant.

You also can't be half-in and half-out of the royal family.

This is a lesson that Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex (nee Markle) are now realising.

Since the fog of the pandemic and travel restrictions have lifted, the happy couple have been thrust back into the spotlight this week as they popped to The Hague to open the Invictus Games. 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the sitting volleyball section of the fifth edition of the Invictus Games last week. Picture: Sam van der Wal/AFP

But it was what they got up to before the public events by stopping over in the UK to see Harry's grandmother, the artist more commonly known as Queen Elizabeth II, which has garnered them days, hours and vast centimetres of coverage since re-emerging into the spotlight.

"The Duke and Duchess of Sussex met the Queen on Thursday after flying into the UK," was the short statement which spawned a bucket load of articles, reactions, hot takes and posts all around the world. Not to mention the spike in Google searches for both of their names. 

The couple stopped in at Windsor to visit the Queen, who has been absent from public events due to poor mobility and the fact she's 96-years-old.

Prince Harry's last trip home was in July last year for his grandfather's funeral, while Meghan is not thought to have been in the country since 2020 when they quit their gigs and swapped Frogmore Cottage for California.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at the Trooping of the Colour in 2019, before they got jack of royal duties.

Now they have committed to making it on their own out there, after resigning from their positions as senior, working royals, their reality is, of course, one of a united, happy family and partnership, but they also need to start seriously navigating life as 'Harry and Meghan Pty Ltd'. They lost their HRH prefixes but have gained new pressures, and most of them will likely be commercial.

And their cash flow will rely on content creation.

Since they made the move to the land of the free and eviscerated The Firm - the machine behind Harry's family that keeps them in work and in the good graces of the public who fund their lifestyles - with that "tell all" interview with America's Queen, Oprah, the couple have launched companies and charities and signed lucrative contracts to earn them a crust.

Netflix reportedly paid north of $135million to make a bunch of shows with Harry and Meghan, including a documentary about their lives. It's also the reason a full film crew accompanied them to Europe this week to shoot scenes for one of the projects called, Heart of Invictus.

TV executives didn't fork out that much for this stuff, because we the viewers ultimately don't care. We love seeing it but we ain't parting with our hard earned like the Netflix suits did for watching them win humanitarian awards or making speeches. We want The Crown, we want the juice not the pulp please.

Netflix knows it, and more importantly, so do Harry and Meghan.

"With the news that Netflix’s share price has plummeted by 25% and the streaming giant is losing subscribers, content is, more than ever, king - or in this case, queen. Netflix needs the Sussexes on the palace balcony in June, not off in California feeding the chickens with Archie," The Times of London reported.

You think Harry sitting down for a fire side chat with the US Today Show was all about his charity. Nope, come for the philanthropy, stay for the paternalistic comments which have lit a fresh match under the bin fire that is their relationship with the Palace.

What's the tea?

Harry’s star turn on US breakfast TV this week, was touted as "Prince Harry: one-on-one". In it, he boasted that he had a “very special” relationship with the Queen, who he said can talk to him about things that she can’t talk to anyone else about.

You couldn't miss it. The drip feed to the full interview was leaking all over Instagram, with one clip clocking up more than 121,000 views and 240 comments in less than 24-hours. 

"Being with her, it was great," he continued.

"It was just so nice to see her, she's on great form. She's always got a great sense of humour with me and I'm just making sure that she's protected and got the right people around her."

Was that a dig at his dad, Prince Charles, his brother and sister-in-law William and Catherine? Who knows. Just like the Oprah interview, the questions were artfully dodged. This time he was silence instead of being "silenced".

Were you silent, or were you SILENCED?

Drama sells

Which is exactly why we can expect to see Harry and Meghan, and potentially their rarely seen children, Archie and Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in June to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, marking her 70-years on the throne.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle with their cherubs Archie and Lilibet in their 2021 Christmas Card. Picture by Alexi Lubomirski

An event they've previously attended in 2019, as newlyweds.

They have been officially invited but a spokesperson for the couple told The Telegraph in London "they could not discuss future travel plans."

When asked directly if he would be at the weekend long party, Harry was vague and referenced the "security issues" that saw him suing the Home Office in the UK over a disagreement of the level of protection that might be offered to him and his family when they visit. 

The security concerns are reportedly the same reasons why neither he or Meghan attended Prince Philip's public memorial service last month.

It's been a long running soap opera of its own. Harry has been locked in a battle with the British government for years over a decision to block him from paying for police protection during trips to the UK. 

Harry wants to pay for the security detail himself, instead of the British tax payers who cover all the other working royal's expenses, but there's a hold up with his request to do so. 

Without proper police protection, a legal representative for Harry has said it would be "too risky for the prince, his wife, Meghan, and their children to visit the U.K. from Santa Barbara, California, where they now live."

When it comes to risk, hell hath no fury like a corporate entity scorned.

Harry and Meghan will need to be on the balcony. If not the free range chickens hatched from those organic eggs made famous in the Oprah interview and captured in candid photos strategically placed online, may come home to roost.

One of the last times the Californian couple were on the British balcony. Picture: Max Mumby