The Daily Mail published this story several days ago, and it took me a minute to get to it. It’s worth it just for the laughs, honestly. The Mail has been especially hateful to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex following that Vanity Fair hit-piece, and the Mail is still waging their years-long campaign to convince their readership that the Sussexes are deeply unhappy in America. This is a new low for the Mail though – here’s the title of the piece: “Edward and Sophie were the Harry and Meghan of their day but after their private careers became a well-publicised disaster, they rejoined the family and knuckled down to turn the public’s view of them around – could the Sussexes now follow their lead?” First of all, Edward and Sophie were never “the Harry and Meghan of their day.” Secondly, the desperation is just oozing off these losers – “please come back, we miss you, we want you back!”
They were a young couple who wanted to be ‘half in, half out’ of the Royal Family but struggled after their plans ran into difficulties, causing them to be lampooned by the press. No, not Prince Harry and Meghan, this is the story of the late Queen’s youngest son Edward and his wife Sophie.
But there are a number of remarkable similarities in the two couples’ stories, the biggest being they shared a belief that they wanted to contribute to the Royal Family from time to time while carrying out their own activities. When Sophie and Edward married they insisted on not giving up their day jobs – she in PR and he in television production – which was unheard of in royal circles at the time. However the decision to carve their own path eventually blew up in their faces after a series of public scandals. Sound familiar?
Sophie was caught boasting to an undercover journalist about her PR firm’s royal connections, Edward’s film company tried to avoid a ban on filming his nephew Prince William at university, and there was his disastrous TV show It’s A Royal Knockout in 1987.
Now referred to as ‘the Harry and Meghan of their day’ for trying to do things outside of the traditional Royal Family framework, Edward and Sophie eventually gave up on their commercial activities and became full-time royals. And although in the aftermath of the slew of scandals it was thought Edward and Sophie would never recover, they proved the doubters wrong and after nearly 25 years of hard work, are now regarded as valued supporting members of the family.
Some have suggested that the couple’s path to redemption could be an example for Prince Harry and Meghan to follow. After all there are reports Harry is unhappy in America and has been looking for a way to return to royal life in the future, with claims he has been asking former aides on advice for his ‘rehabilitation’ strategy.
Courtiers told the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden in November that they are increasingly convinced that Harry wants to resume his old way of life, when he felt he was using his privileged position to make a difference for worthwhile causes.
It’s true that Richard Eden quoted COURTIERS, who apparently openly proclaim to Mail reporters that Harry will come back any day now. It’s beyond wishful thinking – it’s the sort of magical thinking of an alternate reality. In the same week that Prince Harry scored an enormous victory against one of the most powerful press barons in the world, the Mail was openly suggesting that Harry and Meghan are flops who are desperate to come back to the UK and be the new Sophie and Edward.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Buckingham Palace.
