The Sussexes are pushing for the family to make the first peace offering and recognise they were wronged
“It is like living through a soap opera where everyone else views you as entertainment,” the Duke of Sussex said about life in the royal family, during six hours of prime-time, “Kardashian-style” Netflix access into Harry and Meghan’s world of “truth”.
It is now clear that theirs is a soap opera the royal family want no part in.
Last year, in the aftermath of the couple’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, or “Soap Oprah” as the Palace dubbed it, Queen Elizabeth issued her masterstroke statement that “some recollections may vary” when the royal family stood accused of racism and callous disregard for the couple’s mental health. This time, the silence from Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace is deafening.
The royal family’s actions speak for themselves. The King danced the afternoon away on Friday at a Jewish community centre in north London. On Thursday, hours after the Sussexes’ second round of hand grenades, the Windsor clan was out in force at Westminster Abbey for the Princess of Wales’s carol service, dedicated to the values and legacy of the late Queen. Prince William read an extract from their grandmother’s 2012 Christmas message on “the spirit of togetherness”. Need he say more?
But Harry and Meghan do want more. It can be revealed today that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex want to “sit down with the royal family” for a meeting to address their “issues” after their damning six-hour Netflix series, which involved relentless criticism of the monarchy.
The couple feel the royal family has shown double standards by instigating a reconciliation meeting between Ngozi Fulani, the charity boss, and Lady Susan Hussey, a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. The latter made “unacceptable and deeply regrettable” comments about Fulani’s heritage last month, and Hussey offered her “sincere apologies” at last week’s meetings.
A source close to the Sussexes said: “Nothing like that was ever done when Harry and Meghan raised various concerns — no meeting, formal apology or taking responsibility or accountability. That is hard to swallow — 100 per cent yes they’d like to have a meeting.”
Meanwhile:
• The Sunday Times understands that Harry’s autobiography, Spare, which will be published on January 10, includes claims about the monarchy that are more incendiary than those made in the Netflix series.
• They are keen for a meeting and reconciliation with the royal family before the coronation next May, which they are expected to attend. A senior palace source said: “If they want to get in touch with the King, they know where he lives.”
• Friends of the Prince of Wales, who came under heavy fire in the Netflix series, said he had no plans to speak to his brother: “Things have been very strained for a while,” said a friend. “There is sadness at where things currently are with his brother . . . and there’s a memoir coming.” Another close friend of Prince William said: “The whole thing is mad.”
• It is understood the royal family and Buckingham Palace have no plans to respond to the Sussexes’ claims in the Netflix series or to arrange a meeting with the couple. A courtier said of Harry’s criticism of the monarchy in the series and his forthcoming book: “That is Harry’s decision – he’s taking one decision, we’re taking another.”
Asked why the royal family stayed silent last week, a courtier says: “We are deliberately keen to send a message by being voiceless. Our duty is to get on with the job. It isn’t to respond.”
The strategy of silence has been heard loud and clear around the world. Even the American TV news anchor, Gayle King, a close friend of the Sussexes, agrees with the approach: “That would seem the right tack to take from the Palace, just have no comment,” she said on her morning show last week.
A friend of the royal family adds: “They are right to rise above it and concentrate on demonstrating that service and duty matter. Let the trivialities, pettiness and contradictions speak for themselves.”
Harry’s childhood agony of growing up inside the royal goldfish bowl after his mother died, and Meghan’s suicidal thoughts and mental health issues as she struggled to cope with royal life are painful to watch. But during three more episodes of rage and revenge, Harry, still so raw, seems not to have come to terms with where he has ended up. Maybe he never will. Maybe that’s why the Netflix narrative needed massaging to support the Sussexes’ version of events.
Harry said it was “terrifying” to have William “scream and shout” during the Sandringham summit, a meeting called by the late Queen in January 2020 to determine the Sussexes’ future. The King said things “that simply weren’t true” and Her Majesty sat “quietly” taking it all in. “You have to understand,” Harry told us, “that from a family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate mission, goal, slash responsibility is the institution. People around her are telling her that proposal or these two doing x, y or z is going to be seen as an attack on the institution, then she’s going to go on the advice she’s been given.” Here, then, is Harry’s new version of the Queen — a pushover monarch, guided more by courtiers than her own razor-sharp instinct honed over a 70-year reign.
The problem is that his version doesn’t tally with anyone else’s experience of the Queen, who was “sharp as a tack” and calling the shots until the day she died. “It’s outrageous,” says a courtier. “Harry never wanted to admit to himself that it was the Queen who said, ‘no, you’re out’. He couldn’t fathom that he wasn’t the cheeky chappy who was going to sweet-talk grandma into getting what he wanted.”
Another seasoned courtier who watched the Sussex storm become a hurricane observes: “The narrative has shifted from Prince Harry on the Queen. It was always ‘my commander-in-chief, the boss’. But when he was not getting the support from her he wanted, she is represented as a diminutive figure sat in the corner.
“That is another manipulation of the narrative to suit the outcome as felt by Harry. Advisers made recommendations to Her Majesty, but there was only one person making the decisions. To look the truth squarely in the eye, to realise your relationship has been damaged and to know it was his commander-in-chief who decided he couldn’t have the half-in, half-out role he wanted, is probably too painful for him to accept.”
Nor does Harry seem able to accept anyone else’s point of view. When he returned for Prince Philip’s funeral last April, a year after ditching royal life, he said “chats with my brother and my father” frustrated him, because they were “very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation”. But the late Queen, the King and the Prince of Wales were always clear — part-time royals don’t work, never have, never will. Harry can’t forgive them: “I have had to make peace with the fact we’re probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.”
A friend of the royal family says: “Harry is convinced his view is correct. He’s a man on a mission to change things in a way he thinks they need to be changed. It’s a true quest he’s on. The rest of the family think what he’s doing is hugely damaging. It’s two ideologies clashing in the quadrangle where neither can cede ground.”
A friend of Harry’s agrees: “People ask ‘why air your dirty laundry?’ Everything Harry does and says is rooted in wanting to try and change things for the better, even if not everyone agrees with that. If the outcome of all of this is an institution and a family that operates in a more modern way, then so much the better . . . if there is a chance to improve things for the next generation, that’s a positive.”
Of course, there was more media-bashing and claims that the British press is the Palace’s “partner”, working hand in glove to thwart the Sussexes at every turn. Harry spoke of “institutional gaslighting”, which sent royal insiders’ eyebrows skywards: “Gaslighting? You are gaslighting the family via global television,” says a former courtier.
A friend of the King says: “It’s a disgraceful betrayal of trust, an unwelcome distraction in the short term and very hurtful to the family. But it’s not as damaging to the monarchy as we feared. Most sensible people will see it for what it is — self-indulgent, one-sided and exploitative. With every passing month and year, it will be seen as the tawdry, shameful exercise it was. I’m sure Harry will come to regret it unless he’s lost to the world. William must be furious and the King will be devastated, but they will crack on, showing on a weekly basis what the job entails and the value it brings — Harry and Meghan can’t. Any chance of reconciliation is much harder now.”
Harry spoke last week of new chapters: “As sad as it is, in order for change to happen sometimes a lot of pain has to come to the surface — in order to move to the next chapter you’ve got to finish the first chapter.” Next month, he is primed to give us many more chapters — 416 pages’ worth — when his memoir Spare is published.
But royal sources believe that the couple have “overplayed their hand quite badly” with so much deeply personal content, much of it scathing of the monarchy and how it treated them. A source says: “They’ve fired all their ammunition and keep shooting the same bullets. Their business model must rely on them making money from something, what will it be if not to rely on this narrative of victimhood?”
A source close to the Sussexes says that after Harry’s book, the couple will “focus on their service work” rather than “anything personal — they’re looking forward to people being interested in what they’re doing beyond all the drama.”
An increasingly weary monarchy and public will hope Harry will be true to his word after he said in the final Netflix episode: “My wife and I, we are moving on. We are focused on what’s coming next.” It’s a funny way to describe six hours of looking back at years of family strife, which has alienated him from most of his family and some of his friends: “I miss my friends. I’ve lost a few friends in this process as well.” By her own admission, spilling the beans has not given Meghan “peace” after all: “I can’t have peace without truth. We got some truth out there but it hasn’t given us peace.”
A YouGov poll last week showed the Sussexes’ popularity has fallen to new depths with Britons. Only Prince Andrew is now less popular. The audience, it seems, has decided.
u/RoyaNikkhah
I don’t care about the royal family and all of this, but even if these things were going on, all that has happened is that the royals will just further cut Harry and Meghan from the family. You don’t air family laundry in the public eye
Charles doesn’t seem to have any patience like Liz did and has practically cut off Andrew and is looking to see if he can remove his titles. Chances are he’ll do the same for Harry once the book comes out in the new year.
Also legally, Charles can take full custody of Harry’s children if he feels Harry is an unfit father
[deleted]
Airing family matters in public on a global scale is just so crass.
I’m so bored of their never ending pity party.
H&M: “how can we make more money out of our pity party after we wanted “privacy” and still use the titles we voluntarily gave up to our advantage? Oh, I know…. “
With what aim in view? He still won’t be King or next in line, and it’s difficult to see how they can fulfil any useful role in the RF now. Better to embrace the logic of their position, repudiate the titles and the money, Harry could become a US citizen and keep flogging his grievances to a dwindling audience, or , more positively find some more useful work to do.
Reading the majority of the comments only proves them right about their reasons to make a Doc. No one know what was really going on, None of you know these people, the only things you know about them is what the media have said about them but you’re all too gullible to believe that the media wouldn’t lie and harry and Meghan are the attention seeking liars. Could only imagine what it’s like to have 6 books written about me and countless primetime interviews by so called experts who I’ve never met constantly tell the world who me and my wife are. Its sad that so many people have taken the side of the royal family and the press over a couple that’s just want to live an independent life and not be hounded by the press.
They need some new material, so a summit allows them to sneak in some Netflix cameras again. This latest stuff just isn’t sticking
And another round of shows milking their franchise for every penny they can.
There 3 side of every story.
Megan & Harry side
Kate & William side
The truth
Now that rat demand an apology because what she said is true and we don’t need the other side of the story? Like stfu and get piss rat
More than anything the H&M documentary reveals how different we Brits are from our Americans cousins – ‘two nations divided by a shared language’.
Megan simply does not grasp British attitudes to celebrity, service, wealth, responsibility, emotion, privacy, race, and so much more.
The most telling moment for me is when she makes a cookery book with the Grenfall families, now obviously this is a wonderful gesture and to be applauded – but putting a picture of yourself on the cover rather than the surviving families immediately shifts how the British public will perceive the whole endeavor.
Another example is the repeated notion that Meghan provides some legitimacy or representative symbolism for a multi-racial commonwealth by virtue of having mixed race heritage. To a Brit the idea that a D-list actress from Los Angeles has some kind kinship with the people of Eswatini is absurd and the Americanised reduction of racism to ‘White skin privileged, Black skin oppressed’ doesn’t work outside of the USA (you could argue it doesn’t even work there but there is a huge social apparatus there that helps to preserve it).
What is this shit? Its crap.. its building a fake story line to sell to papers and for books / movies. I Cant believe I am seeing this shit. Sorry world 🙁
13 comments
The Sussexes are pushing for the family to make the first peace offering and recognise they were wronged
“It is like living through a soap opera where everyone else views you as entertainment,” the Duke of Sussex said about life in the royal family, during six hours of prime-time, “Kardashian-style” Netflix access into Harry and Meghan’s world of “truth”.
It is now clear that theirs is a soap opera the royal family want no part in.
Last year, in the aftermath of the couple’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, or “Soap Oprah” as the Palace dubbed it, Queen Elizabeth issued her masterstroke statement that “some recollections may vary” when the royal family stood accused of racism and callous disregard for the couple’s mental health. This time, the silence from Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace is deafening.
The royal family’s actions speak for themselves. The King danced the afternoon away on Friday at a Jewish community centre in north London. On Thursday, hours after the Sussexes’ second round of hand grenades, the Windsor clan was out in force at Westminster Abbey for the Princess of Wales’s carol service, dedicated to the values and legacy of the late Queen. Prince William read an extract from their grandmother’s 2012 Christmas message on “the spirit of togetherness”. Need he say more?
But Harry and Meghan do want more. It can be revealed today that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex want to “sit down with the royal family” for a meeting to address their “issues” after their damning six-hour Netflix series, which involved relentless criticism of the monarchy.
The couple feel the royal family has shown double standards by instigating a reconciliation meeting between Ngozi Fulani, the charity boss, and Lady Susan Hussey, a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. The latter made “unacceptable and deeply regrettable” comments about Fulani’s heritage last month, and Hussey offered her “sincere apologies” at last week’s meetings.
A source close to the Sussexes said: “Nothing like that was ever done when Harry and Meghan raised various concerns — no meeting, formal apology or taking responsibility or accountability. That is hard to swallow — 100 per cent yes they’d like to have a meeting.”
Meanwhile:
• The Sunday Times understands that Harry’s autobiography, Spare, which will be published on January 10, includes claims about the monarchy that are more incendiary than those made in the Netflix series.
• They are keen for a meeting and reconciliation with the royal family before the coronation next May, which they are expected to attend. A senior palace source said: “If they want to get in touch with the King, they know where he lives.”
• Friends of the Prince of Wales, who came under heavy fire in the Netflix series, said he had no plans to speak to his brother: “Things have been very strained for a while,” said a friend. “There is sadness at where things currently are with his brother . . . and there’s a memoir coming.” Another close friend of Prince William said: “The whole thing is mad.”
• It is understood the royal family and Buckingham Palace have no plans to respond to the Sussexes’ claims in the Netflix series or to arrange a meeting with the couple. A courtier said of Harry’s criticism of the monarchy in the series and his forthcoming book: “That is Harry’s decision – he’s taking one decision, we’re taking another.”
Asked why the royal family stayed silent last week, a courtier says: “We are deliberately keen to send a message by being voiceless. Our duty is to get on with the job. It isn’t to respond.”
The strategy of silence has been heard loud and clear around the world. Even the American TV news anchor, Gayle King, a close friend of the Sussexes, agrees with the approach: “That would seem the right tack to take from the Palace, just have no comment,” she said on her morning show last week.
A friend of the royal family adds: “They are right to rise above it and concentrate on demonstrating that service and duty matter. Let the trivialities, pettiness and contradictions speak for themselves.”
Harry’s childhood agony of growing up inside the royal goldfish bowl after his mother died, and Meghan’s suicidal thoughts and mental health issues as she struggled to cope with royal life are painful to watch. But during three more episodes of rage and revenge, Harry, still so raw, seems not to have come to terms with where he has ended up. Maybe he never will. Maybe that’s why the Netflix narrative needed massaging to support the Sussexes’ version of events.
Harry said it was “terrifying” to have William “scream and shout” during the Sandringham summit, a meeting called by the late Queen in January 2020 to determine the Sussexes’ future. The King said things “that simply weren’t true” and Her Majesty sat “quietly” taking it all in. “You have to understand,” Harry told us, “that from a family’s perspective, especially from hers, there are ways of doing things and her ultimate mission, goal, slash responsibility is the institution. People around her are telling her that proposal or these two doing x, y or z is going to be seen as an attack on the institution, then she’s going to go on the advice she’s been given.” Here, then, is Harry’s new version of the Queen — a pushover monarch, guided more by courtiers than her own razor-sharp instinct honed over a 70-year reign.
The problem is that his version doesn’t tally with anyone else’s experience of the Queen, who was “sharp as a tack” and calling the shots until the day she died. “It’s outrageous,” says a courtier. “Harry never wanted to admit to himself that it was the Queen who said, ‘no, you’re out’. He couldn’t fathom that he wasn’t the cheeky chappy who was going to sweet-talk grandma into getting what he wanted.”
Another seasoned courtier who watched the Sussex storm become a hurricane observes: “The narrative has shifted from Prince Harry on the Queen. It was always ‘my commander-in-chief, the boss’. But when he was not getting the support from her he wanted, she is represented as a diminutive figure sat in the corner.
“That is another manipulation of the narrative to suit the outcome as felt by Harry. Advisers made recommendations to Her Majesty, but there was only one person making the decisions. To look the truth squarely in the eye, to realise your relationship has been damaged and to know it was his commander-in-chief who decided he couldn’t have the half-in, half-out role he wanted, is probably too painful for him to accept.”
Nor does Harry seem able to accept anyone else’s point of view. When he returned for Prince Philip’s funeral last April, a year after ditching royal life, he said “chats with my brother and my father” frustrated him, because they were “very much focused on the same misinterpretation of the whole situation”. But the late Queen, the King and the Prince of Wales were always clear — part-time royals don’t work, never have, never will. Harry can’t forgive them: “I have had to make peace with the fact we’re probably never going to get genuine accountability or a genuine apology.”
A friend of the royal family says: “Harry is convinced his view is correct. He’s a man on a mission to change things in a way he thinks they need to be changed. It’s a true quest he’s on. The rest of the family think what he’s doing is hugely damaging. It’s two ideologies clashing in the quadrangle where neither can cede ground.”
A friend of Harry’s agrees: “People ask ‘why air your dirty laundry?’ Everything Harry does and says is rooted in wanting to try and change things for the better, even if not everyone agrees with that. If the outcome of all of this is an institution and a family that operates in a more modern way, then so much the better . . . if there is a chance to improve things for the next generation, that’s a positive.”
Of course, there was more media-bashing and claims that the British press is the Palace’s “partner”, working hand in glove to thwart the Sussexes at every turn. Harry spoke of “institutional gaslighting”, which sent royal insiders’ eyebrows skywards: “Gaslighting? You are gaslighting the family via global television,” says a former courtier.
A friend of the King says: “It’s a disgraceful betrayal of trust, an unwelcome distraction in the short term and very hurtful to the family. But it’s not as damaging to the monarchy as we feared. Most sensible people will see it for what it is — self-indulgent, one-sided and exploitative. With every passing month and year, it will be seen as the tawdry, shameful exercise it was. I’m sure Harry will come to regret it unless he’s lost to the world. William must be furious and the King will be devastated, but they will crack on, showing on a weekly basis what the job entails and the value it brings — Harry and Meghan can’t. Any chance of reconciliation is much harder now.”
Harry spoke last week of new chapters: “As sad as it is, in order for change to happen sometimes a lot of pain has to come to the surface — in order to move to the next chapter you’ve got to finish the first chapter.” Next month, he is primed to give us many more chapters — 416 pages’ worth — when his memoir Spare is published.
But royal sources believe that the couple have “overplayed their hand quite badly” with so much deeply personal content, much of it scathing of the monarchy and how it treated them. A source says: “They’ve fired all their ammunition and keep shooting the same bullets. Their business model must rely on them making money from something, what will it be if not to rely on this narrative of victimhood?”
A source close to the Sussexes says that after Harry’s book, the couple will “focus on their service work” rather than “anything personal — they’re looking forward to people being interested in what they’re doing beyond all the drama.”
An increasingly weary monarchy and public will hope Harry will be true to his word after he said in the final Netflix episode: “My wife and I, we are moving on. We are focused on what’s coming next.” It’s a funny way to describe six hours of looking back at years of family strife, which has alienated him from most of his family and some of his friends: “I miss my friends. I’ve lost a few friends in this process as well.” By her own admission, spilling the beans has not given Meghan “peace” after all: “I can’t have peace without truth. We got some truth out there but it hasn’t given us peace.”
A YouGov poll last week showed the Sussexes’ popularity has fallen to new depths with Britons. Only Prince Andrew is now less popular. The audience, it seems, has decided.
u/RoyaNikkhah
I don’t care about the royal family and all of this, but even if these things were going on, all that has happened is that the royals will just further cut Harry and Meghan from the family. You don’t air family laundry in the public eye
Charles doesn’t seem to have any patience like Liz did and has practically cut off Andrew and is looking to see if he can remove his titles. Chances are he’ll do the same for Harry once the book comes out in the new year.
Also legally, Charles can take full custody of Harry’s children if he feels Harry is an unfit father
[deleted]
Airing family matters in public on a global scale is just so crass.
I’m so bored of their never ending pity party.
H&M: “how can we make more money out of our pity party after we wanted “privacy” and still use the titles we voluntarily gave up to our advantage? Oh, I know…. “
With what aim in view? He still won’t be King or next in line, and it’s difficult to see how they can fulfil any useful role in the RF now. Better to embrace the logic of their position, repudiate the titles and the money, Harry could become a US citizen and keep flogging his grievances to a dwindling audience, or , more positively find some more useful work to do.
Reading the majority of the comments only proves them right about their reasons to make a Doc. No one know what was really going on, None of you know these people, the only things you know about them is what the media have said about them but you’re all too gullible to believe that the media wouldn’t lie and harry and Meghan are the attention seeking liars. Could only imagine what it’s like to have 6 books written about me and countless primetime interviews by so called experts who I’ve never met constantly tell the world who me and my wife are. Its sad that so many people have taken the side of the royal family and the press over a couple that’s just want to live an independent life and not be hounded by the press.
They need some new material, so a summit allows them to sneak in some Netflix cameras again. This latest stuff just isn’t sticking
And another round of shows milking their franchise for every penny they can.
There 3 side of every story.
Megan & Harry side
Kate & William side
The truth
Now that rat demand an apology because what she said is true and we don’t need the other side of the story? Like stfu and get piss rat
More than anything the H&M documentary reveals how different we Brits are from our Americans cousins – ‘two nations divided by a shared language’.
Megan simply does not grasp British attitudes to celebrity, service, wealth, responsibility, emotion, privacy, race, and so much more.
The most telling moment for me is when she makes a cookery book with the Grenfall families, now obviously this is a wonderful gesture and to be applauded – but putting a picture of yourself on the cover rather than the surviving families immediately shifts how the British public will perceive the whole endeavor.
Another example is the repeated notion that Meghan provides some legitimacy or representative symbolism for a multi-racial commonwealth by virtue of having mixed race heritage. To a Brit the idea that a D-list actress from Los Angeles has some kind kinship with the people of Eswatini is absurd and the Americanised reduction of racism to ‘White skin privileged, Black skin oppressed’ doesn’t work outside of the USA (you could argue it doesn’t even work there but there is a huge social apparatus there that helps to preserve it).
What is this shit? Its crap.. its building a fake story line to sell to papers and for books / movies. I Cant believe I am seeing this shit. Sorry world 🙁