There’s a German “journalist” named Ulrike Grunewald who seems to think that she’s the Ronan Farrow of the royal beat. Instead of using her time and resources to investigate the slumlord Windsors and their hidden fortune, Grunewald has apparently spent years “investigating” the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Just doing two minutes of research on Grunewald online, it seems like a lot of very sad and hateful people pinned a lot of their hopes on her, and they wanted her to “expose” Harry and Meghan for [insert deranged conspiracy here]. Instead, after all of this time, money and effort, Grunewald has made a 45-minute documentary called Harry: The Lost Prince. The documentary reveals that Grunewald gets all of her talking points from the Daily Mail, and wouldn’t you know, the Mail did an exclusive interview with her to promote her documentary. This is a closed loop – the Mail says something vile about the Sussexes, Grunewald repeats it in a faux-investigative documentary, and the Mail squeezes another story about their own vile lie. From the Mail:
A major documentary titled Harry: The Lost Prince is to air on television in Germany on Tuesday. The 45-minute film has been more than a year in the making and is an examination of, among other things, whether Harry and Meghan have succeeded in ‘finding freedom’ and launching themselves as a financially independent, globally influential entity. The answer to this last question, according to documentary-maker Ulrike Grunewald, one of Germany’s most experienced royal reporters, is a firm ‘No.’
As Ms Grunewald, presenter of the long-running German news and current affairs show, Heute-Journal (Today-Journal), and a royal correspondent since 1987 when she accompanied the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana on their visit to Germany, told the Mail exclusively: ‘Harry and Meghan have set the bar very high. They want to be global benefactors who bring about tangible change. So far, they have not lived up to this image at all.’
Ms Grunewald travelled to Montecito to try to interview the couple and their friends and discovered that despite their wealth and royal pedigree, the Sussexes do not appear to have been fully integrated into the community’s most elite circles. She said: ‘On average, the millionaires and billionaires who move here pay eight to nine million euros for a house. The cultural life is very lively, but everything often takes place in closed circles and Harry and Meghan rarely take part in these activities. They seem to have isolated themselves a lot.’
The Sussexes’ neighbour, Richard Mineards, tells Ms Grunewald that the couple don’t seem to have put down particularly deep roots in the area, being seldom seen in town – just occasional trips to the local market or walks, always with security in tow: ‘Sometimes you will see her at the farmers’ market or with a dog but generally you don’t see her and you just don’t see much of him. It’s a shame. This is a lovely place.’
Ms Grunewald was further intrigued by their Archewell Foundation, which was launched to great fanfare in 2020 as their major philanthropic venture. ‘What surprised me most was how ineffectively Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation is organised,’ she told the Mail. ‘The amount of donations has fallen drastically in one year: from 13million dollars in 2021 to two million dollars declared in 2022/23. According to their own documents, Harry and Meghan only work one hour a week for the Archewell Foundation – why so little?’
Ms Grunewald said: ‘During the year that we worked on this film, a change of strategy was recognisable in Harry and Meghan. They started out as a power duo in their new life in California. Now they mainly appear separately, as they were unable to create a functioning image together. They have come down to earth. I was interested in whether Harry and Meghan’s strategies for an independent life are working. After four years, the results are very mixed.’
Just to be clear, a German tabloid-TV journalist barged into the quiet and ritzy enclave of Montecito and demanded to speak to the Sussexes and anyone who knows Meghan and Harry. Montecito residents would have treated her the same way they treat the British tabloid journalists who try to stalk the Sussexes in California as well. Few people spoke to her and of course no one is going to open up their private foundation or accounts to her, so all she has to go on are the increasingly hysterical and intrusive British tabloid reports, which she uses in place of actual investigation. Something else is clear from this Mail exclusive – they’re all going to start ramping up the criticism of Invictus, and try to target Harry through the Invictus Games in Canada and in Birmingham (in 2027).
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.