A few days ago, the Mail Plus published one of the most insane pieces about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. You can feel the desperation oozing from the Mail’s Alison Boshoff, and the tellingly selective evidence she uses to support her claims are a portrait of a hate machine losing control of the narrative. The point of the story is that Boshoff is doing everything to convince the Mail’s audience that having a hit Netflix show, a guaranteed second season for that hit show and a new podcast all somehow make Meghan a flop, but that Harry’s focus is even worse for not participating in Meghan’s ventures.
Meghan’s podcast: She may have her critics – but even they would surely acknowledge that the Duchess of Sussex is nothing if not indefatigable. Indeed, few celebrities would perhaps embark on another podcast series after their first was so vividly, and publicly, panned.
The second season for WLM: Another surprise came on Friday last week when Netflix caught the media world off-guard by revealing it will stream a ‘second series’ of With Love, Meghan – despite the fact that the hostessing and homemaking show devised and presented by the duchess has had savage reviews across the board. Making the announcement three days after its launch – and, significantly, before the release of Netflix’s weekly viewing figures – the company said it had made a further eight episodes, shot at the same time as the first series, and will be putting them out ‘this autumn’.
Why isn’t Harry involved in Meghan’s projects? So what can we expect from series two of the show, and of this new podcast? In short: absolutely no Harry whatsoever. It can be revealed that the TV show and audio series will be entirely solo efforts, an all-Meghan affair. Sources say there is ‘no sign’ of Prince Harry in the second TV series and no glimpse of their children, Archie, five, and Lilibet, three, either. ‘He’s not in it,’ I am told. ‘It’s her and more friends. More of the same.’ While his wife repeatedly refers to ‘H’ and ‘my lovely husband’ and talks about how much he loves her bacon, he is an off-stage presence and seems to have opted – or been told – to minimise his appearances. Obviously, he also won’t be any part of the girl-power podcast Confessions of a Female Founder either.
Harry is Meghan’s Spare: So, as Meghan moves to carve out her place in the spotlight, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Harry has become the ‘spare’ – as he might put it – at least in his wife’s working life. While she embarks on a new media blitz, appearing on chat shows and red carpets, Harry has instead seemingly retreated into domestic obscurity. Persistent reports that there is marital trouble in their Montecito paradise are described by sources close to the couple as ‘exaggerated’. They say With Love, Meghan was always a ‘personal project’ of the duchess, and that she and Harry ‘fully support’ each other’s work while also pursuing their own passions.
Harry’s daily life: Meghan tells us he’s a great father to their young children and he often does the school run and walks the dogs. She says he loves California and its beaches, and we know from a video posted by an instructor that he’s learning to surf. Playing polo with the local team in Santa Barbara is an expensive and time-consuming hobby for the prince, and there are a couple of well paid part-time jobs – the coaching firm BetterUp and eco tourism outfit Travalyst – which seem to occupy him for no more than a handful of days a month. His duties for these firms, I’m told, are carried out remotely from their $15 million (£11.6 million) home. Meanwhile, his charities, Archewell and Invictus – which will likely be Harry’s lasting legacy – have their own experienced executive teams. None of it seems to amount to what most would recognise as a job; in an interview earlier this month in People magazine Meghan talked about the two of them having ‘day dates’ – meaning lunches at home.
Left-Behind Harry!! So is semi-employed Harry getting left behind? Certainly, it appeared clear from the moment Meghan signed her deal with media supremo Ari Emanuel at talent agency WME in April 2023 – just her, not her and Harry – that she was going it alone.
It seems to me that Harry and Meghan have finally worked out their career paths in America, especially after they got their side of the story out in the Oprah interview, the Netflix docuseries and Harry’s memoir. Post-Spare, especially, it feels like Harry has just doubled-down with doing his own thing – his business interests in BetterUp, his work with African Parks, Travalyst, Invictus and more. He seems happy to give Meghan the space to make a lifestyle show, launch her brand and do her own thing. It’s once again the British media trying to make it sound like a couple is odd or close to divorce by simply having different career paths. They’re also minimizing Harry’s work and Harry himself – I guarantee that Harry, who now lives privately and whose lifestyle is not being funded in any way by British taxpayers, works a hell of a lot more than the current Prince of Wales, who spends his days doing f–k all and recently confessed to spending hours on football forums.
Also: they’re just so incandescent with rage that they can’t force Meghan to read all of their scorn for her and WLM. They organized this big review-bombing and WLM is still a success and it still got a second season and Netflix is still partnered with Meghan on her As Ever line. And they can’t even force her to include Harry or put her kids on the show! Articles like this are like screams and wails from a padded cell.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Netflix.
