They devote 10,000 word diatribes on Prince Harry, trying to convince themselves that he is unhappy, that he misses the UK, that he has regrets about choosing his wife and children over being the Windsors’ scapegoat. Their obsession with Harry has long been a window into their own dysfunction and increasingly poor mental health. They project all of their rage, regret and racism onto him. How dare he choose his Black wife over US? How dare he land on his feet? How dare he find happiness away from us? How dare he live in a mansion, doesn’t he know he’s the spare? Why didn’t he come crawling back to us, broke and divorced? Those are the spoilers for this latest uncomfortable read in The Telegraph. The piece is “How Prince Harry fills his days away from the spotlight; Ahead of his 40th birthday, we explore the Duke of Sussex’s day-to-day life – and the rumours that he wants to come home.” It was written by Hannah Furness and it is a very sad piece. Sad for the Telegraph, sad for the British media, sad for the Windsors. They are so hopelessly obsessed with Harry and at no point did Furness or anyone else ask themselves “why do we have this all-consuming interest in and fury for a man who left us five years ago?” Some highlights:
Life in Montecito: Gone is the royal duty; the engagements shaking hands with volunteers on a wet Wednesday back in Britain. But gone too are the palaces, the honorary military titles, and many of the old friends who would drag him down the pub or reminisce over their schooldays and Army escapades. Instead, there is Montecito. Walks on the beach, bike rides, school runs and jellyfish kites flown on the lawn. Flanked by security on the rare occasions he is seen in public, Prince Harry is in demand but under the radar. He works out, occasionally goes out for dinner, hosts new friends at his nine-bedroom home (complete with 16 bathrooms and a swimming pool).
A future in his own hands: The future, for the first time in his life, is Harry’s alone to decide. No longer under the eye of his hated palace officials, his path is his own to choose. “There is so much good work happening,” a member of their team has said. Prince Harry’s new circle is small but “amazing”, insists an ally, and Harry is “doing great”. Others, quoted in different Sunday newspapers, claim he’s an “angry boy” feeling “more and more isolated in California”. “Does he look like a man who is unhappy?” counters a separate source, citing recent smiling photographs of Harry and Meghan in Colombia. Never has one man been described so differently depending on who you speak to and what you read.
Harry doesn’t take Foreign Office advice! Not entirely unlike his royal tours of old in content, [the Colombia tour] was low on official handshakes and diplomacy but high on hugs, and scrapped the advice of the Foreign Office in favour of being personally hosted by the country’s vice-president. It caused bemusement in some quarters back in Britain, with the recurring theme of “why?”. The Sussexes’ new style of overseas tours is “embarrassing”, says a long-term royal observer. But the sole reporter who covered the Colombia trip for Harper’s Bazaar was won over, saying their “warmth and compassion” showed the “intentionality they bring to the way they use their platform”.
Harry’s day-to-day life: There is meditation (a 30-40-minute session each day, scheduled in to make sure it happens) and exercise (formerly at Barry’s Bootcamp in LA, more recently with personal trainers). He chats with his staff, enjoys the garden, marvels at the local birds, does the school run, and walks the dogs. He and the Duchess have been seen occasionally at local steakhouse Lucky’s and upmarket Italian restaurant Tre Lune. The friends they are seen with are high-powered: millionaires, billionaires, business leaders, successful entrepreneurs, producers. Harry has video calls with his team and some of his old charities, sometimes wearing sheepskin slippers under his desk as he works in a shared office with his wife.
The Sussexes’ neighbors are dying to socialize with them: “It’s paradise living here,” says Richard Mineards, a well-connected society columnist for the Montecito Journal who lives, he jokes, a “tiara’s toss” from them in the exclusive area of Riven Rock. “They live rather splendidly, it couldn’t be a nicer place. It’s a very wealthy community, we have a lot of people giving a lot of money to our cultural organisations as well as charities, but we don’t see them.” The couple are conspicuous, he added, for their security, particularly after first moving there during the pandemic: “We have got a lot of very rich and very famous people here, and none of them have a security retinue like the Sussexes. The community is waiting for them – they’re gnashing at the bit. The cachet of a Duke and Duchess!”
The royal status: There is no question that the Sussexes’ deals have come rolling in as a result of their former titles and status – one glance at their new website displays their full titles and a coat of arms, which looks remarkably regal to the untrained eye. But the site’s biography of Harry describes a “humanitarian, military veteran, mental health advocate, and environmental campaigner” with no mention of his birthright. “The people they work with and in the countries they seem to want to visit largely don’t know or care about the ins and outs of Harry leaving the working Royal family,” one source said. “They will always see him as the grandson of the Queen [Elizabeth II] or son of Diana. The technicalities of whether he’s an HRH… I don’t think it means much to ordinary people.”
The Windsors don’t even think about Harry! With Harry 5,000 miles away, the Royal family back home has been dealing with battles of its own. The illnesses of the King and Princess of Wales have focused minds in the palaces, with all energies – personal and professional – going towards keeping the show on the road and nursing the monarchy’s star players back to health. There is simply less time to ponder other dramas. While Prince William may once have dwelt on his relationship with his younger brother, one friend said, “his wife is the centre of his world. His father is ill. It brings things into focus”.
“The Sussexes’ new style of overseas tours is “embarrassing”, says a long-term royal observer.” As embarrassing as colonialist cosplay and getting fired live on television in Jamaica? As embarrassing as Camilla’s drunk ass not even getting out of the car in Kenya? What’s embarrassing the Windsors is that they were too jealous, short-sighted and petty to manage their brightest stars. Five years of trying to convince everyone that Harry is miserable, that he’ll come back eventually, that we don’t need Harry anyway. It’s all blown up in their faces.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.