Harry who? Fed-up Brits tune out

The British public have roared with laughter at Prince Harry’s revelations in his book, but now have delivered the ultimate humiliation … by ignoring him.

Prince Harry is interviewed by Anderson Cooper on US 60 Minutes. Picture: CBS

The British public have roared with laughter at Prince Harry’s revelations in his book Spare, but now have delivered the ultimate humiliation … by ignoring him.

In a surprise ratings result, Harry’s heavily promoted only British interview on ITV – conducted with his friend Tom Bradby – wasn’t the ratings bonanza that was expected.

Just 4.1 million tuned and streamed in to hear Harry rowing back on the racist allegations against the royal family that were so damaging and hurtful when unleashed in 2021 on the Oprah Winfrey show.

Escapist crime drama Happy Valley, on the BBC, was more appealing and attracted well over five million viewers.

Harry’s popularity in Britain had already tanked, even before this wave of promotional interviews, including three in the US where the final one will be on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

A recent YouGov poll conducted last Thursday and Friday, just before Harry’s interviews, shows just 26 per cent of Britons have a positive view of the prince; two- thirds can’t stand him.

Anecdotally, that disapproval has soared in the past two days, with open mocking and hostility towards the fifth in line to the throne dominating talk shows.

Harry, once seen as the loveable rogue, had enjoyed strong support in Britain, being one of the most popular royals. Months after announcing he was dating Meghan Markle in 2017, his popularity was 81 per cent.

The decline began with the couple leaving Britain in 2020 in a quest for privacy, but which has since seen rolling gripes about royal life and a capitalising on the couple’s royal status.

In Britain, morning talk show panellists have been roaring with laughter about Harry’s frozen appendage and the losing of his virginity; radio stations have been flooded with angry demands that the Sussexes not be invited to the King’s coronation.

There is a perplexity about why Harry would reveal he killed 25 Taliban, bringing with it increased security risks not only to his family, but to all British military personnel.

There is annoyance that he told US 60 Minutes “what difference would that make” in answer to giving up their titles. And as a royal with an entire communications team that was bolstered with Meghan’s own US-based advisers there is a bewilderment as to why he encouraged the world to believe the royal family was racist including accepting an award for calling out the royal family’s racism.

Where Harry may have thought a memoir unloading on his stepmother Queen Consort Camilla would have won him ­unbridled public support, it has instead destroyed any chance of reconciliation with his father King Charles.

Charles and William have stayed silent, but Buckingham Palace may be alarmed about Harry’s interview with Good Morning America where Harry claimed he was “sacrificed on her PR altar” and that Camilla was a villain who left bodies in the street to rehabilitate her image.

Buckingham Palace will be shocked, however, to find that Harry’s blindsides and disclosure of intimate conversations of his family has also impacted on the popularity of the monarchy.

Prince William’s popularity has dropped from 84 per cent to 69 per cent in the past few years and the number of negative comments about the royals has risen from 9 per cent to 20 per cent.