It’s an eradication that feels Stalinesque. From online evidence at least, it seems Prince Harry is now too toxic for his wife Meghan’s must-always-be-smelling-of-lavender new brand, As Ever.
A scroll through the brand’s Instagram page, which now features 13 different posts, reveals lots of raspberries, Prince Archie and Princess Lilli (albeit faces obscured) but not a single appearance by Harry. Not even a fuzzy-haired elbow.
The narrative for the past five years since Megxit, when Harry and Meghan resigned as working royals, has been that it is Meghan who is the wasp in the compote.
Harry, once the cheeky chappie, the hero who saw active service, founded the Invictus games as well as his Lesotho-based children’s charity Sentebale, who dared to marry ‘out’ for love, was seen to have been kidnapped, led astray, Americanised.
He was the supposed victim of a forceful, ambitious woman who squeezed emotion and imagined hurt from him like one of her home-grown, wax-free lemons. We all felt sorry for him.
But now, with the public spats surrounding the charity he co-founded with Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso 20 years ago in memory of his mother – initially to help children whose parents died of Aids and now focusing on poverty and the effects of climate change – it is Harry who is threatening to splash Meg’s pristine linen with his own toxicity as the charity faces accusations of ‘misogynoir’ and ‘harassment and bullying’.
Dr Sophie Chandauka, chair of the charity whom Harry and the trustees tried to oust, says that since the Sussexes left the UK, donations have plummeted (despite a £1.2million donation from the prince upon the publication of his memoir, Spare).
Harry is nowhere to be seen on Meghan’s Instagram, as she continues the launch of products from her lifestyle brand As Ever
And one of Harry’s old Etonian friends put a size 10 in it by telling the Mail today that Dr Chandauka is jealous of Meghan. As if!
I imagine that all of the above puts Meghan in a confusing, conflicting position, just as she’s about to start selling some stuff – Hibiscus Tea, Shortbread Cookies and, of course, her famous raspberry jam.
She accused our royal family of racism, but her own husband is now being accused of another sort of bias: that black people always need to be saved, and not by themselves.
When Harry threw himself into good works – perhaps as penance for the ill-judged sporting of a Swastika on a fancy-dress outfit when he was 20 – it really was a different age.
It all puts Meghan in a confusing and conflicting position, just as she’s about to start selling her famous raspberry jam
Today, I expect he’s thinking he’s damned if he does help people of colour and damned if he doesn’t. He must tread gingerly, if you’ll pardon the pun.
But poor Harry should have predicted this might happen, given the negative reception the Prince and Princess of Wales received on their visit to Jamaica in 2022, when protesters gathered in Kingston to demand an apology for colonialism and reparations for slavery.
Perhaps Harry felt being married to a woman of colour would render him immune to criticism. And it might have worked, had Meghan not suddenly dead-headed him.
Now, I’m not one to condemn a woman for her husband’s actions. But what’s troubling here is that Meghan hasn’t so far done anything publicly to show she’s standing by Harry over the last few days, when she is perfectly poised to do so with this new launch. However silly the brand might seem, at least it’s a platform.
Remember, Harry devoted pages in his own memoir, Spare, to defend her honour, and seems to have severed all ties with his family to give Meghan her dream life in Montecito.
Perhaps Harry asked not to be included in Meghan’s latest endeavour, though he did appear in her most recent Netflix series, albeit fleetingly in the last episode, in his latest, diminished role: The Influencer’s Husband.
Harry is threatening to splash Meg’s pristine linen with his own toxicity as the charity faces accusations of ‘misogynoir’ and ‘harassment and bullying’ from chair Dr Sophie Chandauka
He’s not only forced to carry the weight of the turmoil swirling around his beloved charity, which gave him dignity and gravitas, but also, it appears, the position of Meghan’s personal Instagram photographer. It’s probably too much for one man to bear.
Meghan’s brand is built on perfectionism, escapism. Now an influencer, any slights can easily be dismissed with an Instagram video featuring Gwyneth Paltrow and a shrug.
Trouble is, she can’t eradicate a label, the headlines or an impending investigation simply by pouring Harry into a clear compostable bag and tying a ribbon round it. Although I’m pretty sure she might want to wring his neck – for the distraction it’s caused from her next venture.