Last week ended up being a busy one for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Harry and Meghan confirmed two new Netflix projects, a cooking show and a polo show, and they also made some public appearances. Last Wednesday, Harry was in San Francisco for a BetterUp event about mental health in the C-suite. BetterUp pays Harry big bucks to be their Chief Impact Officer and they use him to sell tickets to their “summits” and panel discussions. This fact – that Harry’s exclusivity is a huge bonus to the company who employs him – has broken the brain of every British tabloid editor. Add to that, Harry apparently banned all of the British tabloids from the Sentebale polo match in Miami on Friday, and there was only limited press access to a Thursday evening panel discussion on behalf of Sentebale.
Before getting out onto the polo field however, Prince Harry swapped his polo mallet for a microphone to participate in the Sentebale ‘Potential is Waiting’ panel discussion in Miami on Thursday evening. Harry appeared alongside the charity’s chair Dr. Sophie Chandauka, as well as Alix Lebec, the founder and CEO of an organization called Lebec, a company that aims to ‘reimagine how global capital markets can be a force for good’, Hector Mujica, the head of economic opportunity at Google.org, and Sam Bakhshandehpour, the CEO of José Andrés’ hotel group.
The event, which does not appear to have been widely publicized, although there are some short clips from the panel being shared on social media, comes just days after Harry took part in another event, the $1,600-a-ticket BetterUp Uplift summit in San Francisco. Interestingly, while the majority of the event was broadcast to the world on the summit’s livestream event, Harry’s discussion with The Office star Mindy was not featured – and their talk was also not included on the event’s official agenda.
Harry had previously been advertised as a speaker for the Uplift conference, but not the specific event – and so the only way of seeing him was to be present at the pricey two-day event. His latest appearance seems to have been managed in much the same way, with limited photos and videos emerging from the panel discussion.
Many of Harry’s recent appearances have been very carefully publicised, with little information, video, or imagery shared ahead of or during the events. Instead, approved photos or video clips have been released hours, even days, after they take place. That same policy seems to have been very much in place at this latest event, with a staff member telling DailyMail.com that access was only granted to a pre-approved list of people.
The Mail seems absolutely shocked and appalled that a private company would… control their media and control what is seen of a summit which is only open to people willing to spend four figures on tickets? They also seem shocked that Harry – who is suing many of these British outlets – would make a point of banning the British tabloids from a small panel discussion on behalf of HIS charity. And he also banned their photographers from the polo match too. All of which leads me to this Mail piece:
Prince Harry is carefully stage-managing public appearances as he aims to control the narrative around him by avoiding ‘gotcha’ moments, royal experts claimed today. The Duke of Sussex is thought to be working with his PR advisers at Archewell to do all he can to manage photographs and videos from his public appearances – with any output being edited by Archewell or event organisers before being released.
Experts today told how the Sussexes are doing whatever can to manage photos and videos from public appearances to avoid negative PR. Former BBC TV royal correspondent Michael Cole analysed the Duke’s situation, telling MailOnline that it is ‘clear that Prince Harry is now being ‘produced’.’
He said: ‘The majority of his ‘public appearances’ are not public appearances at all but carefully choreographed video recordings played into events where his name on the invitation has been the main attraction. There may be more than one reason the Prince is distancing himself from ‘live’ events but one is certainly an anxiety on his and his wife’s part that he could be confronted by people he does not wish to see and questions he would rather not address. And would not know how to handle either. In Britain, the popularity of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has dwindled rapidly since they chose to go into self-imposed exile, in Canada initially, then California. But even in America, where they were at first very popular, their approval ratings have been dropping as rapidly as the thermometer in mid-winter.’
He also pointed out the ‘very real possibility of a media ‘gotcha’ – someone with a microphone asking a provocative question or throwing an insult in order to get a reaction from the Prince that would garner millions of social media hits worldwide. It is obvious that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are well aware of the disapproval, hostility and contempt they have incurred among many people by their words and actions since they left Britain and they clearly do not wish take any risks of a confrontation they cannot control – let alone stop.
While I think it’s partly about control – and I’ll get to that in a moment – it’s mind-blowing that this guy is going out of his way to bash the Sussexes for having credible security concerns and trying to control who is around them and who is monitoring them. It’s not about being asked a dumb question from some tabloid hack who crashed a panel discussion – it’s about the very real, credible and violent threats to the Sussexes. As for control… yeah, the Sussexes get to control who covers their events. You know who else is a control freak? Could it be William and Kate, who have been manipulating photos and videos to lie and misrepresent themselves? Will and Kate have always closed down their events to the media too, and they’ve often released news and photos days and weeks after the fact. Are they doing that because everyone hates them? Or because they are control freaks?
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.