One of the most asinine parts of Vanity Fair’s February cover story was the stuff about the Duchess of Sussex “pitching” a book about her divorce to publishers. Now that we’re days past the initial shock of the VF hit piece, that one gossip item really stands out as being the most ridiculous part. VF claimed that “a rumor began circulating” through the publishing world “a few years ago” that “Meghan’s team had a conversation with a publishing house to gauge interest in the idea for a potential book. The concept, for which there was no written or formal proposal, was post-divorce.” As I said in our coverage, logically this makes zero sense – even if Meghan had considered divorce, she KNOWS that everyone would want her memoir. She wouldn’t have to pitch anything. She doesn’t even have to pitch anything now – publishers would love it if Meghan wrote a memoir right now. She doesn’t need the “hook” of a divorce.
In my coverage over the weekend, I mentioned that the whole “rumor” felt like it was started by the News Corp-owned publisher HarperCollins. The Murdoch family have a wicked web, from their print media arm in the UK (News Group Newspapers), to their media arm in America (News Corp, which owns Fox News, the WSJ and the New York Post, among many others) to HarperCollins. Given that Harry’s Spare was published by HarperCollins’ rival Penguin Random House, it felt like this was a very specific rumor started with a very specific (publisher) agenda. Now that NGN has settled with Prince Harry, wouldn’t you know, the Murdoch-owned Page Six has an exclusive with more publisher rumors. What are we even doing here? Be less obvious.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle can’t split — because “their value is in being a couple,” a source told Page Six amid claims that Markle shopped a potential post-divorce book. A Vanity Fair cover story published last week alleged that the Duchess of Sussex’s team had quietly held talks with an unnamed publishing house to “gauge interest” in the idea for the book.
However, a source who has worked closely with the couple told Page Six, “Meghan and Harry know that they are tied together, their value is in being a couple — even if they wanted to split, they couldn’t. And honestly, they are obsessed with each other. They are just two narcissists.”
Another insider familiar with the original $20 million Penguin Random House deal the two signed in 2021 said they had never heard anything about a divorce tome. However, it does appear the highly-publicized deal — which, as we previously reported, was originally believed to include books on “leadership” and “wellness” — seems to have quietly dissipated after Harry’s best-selling memoir, “Spare.”
“They are worth more together,” said the publishing insider. “It doesn’t benefit them to be apart — they have all their deals together. I think the Random House deal is much like the Netflix deal: Netflix just said ‘Yes’ to everything because they wanted to get the docu-series [‘Harry & Meghan’]. So they said, ‘Ok, we’ll take the ‘Polo’ show’ and let’s see what happens with Meghan’s lifestyle show.”
Vanity Fair’s source reportedly clarified that the so-called “divorce” book was meant to be about the aftermath of a split from Harry, and not Markle’s first husband, Trevor Engelson, whom the “Suits” alum divorced in 2014. Indeed, Page Six has been told that Markle never likes to broach the subject of Engelson.
Page Six is told there was talk of Harry splitting his memoir into two parts before he decided to keep it to one book. “Spare” has now sold more than 6 million copies worldwide and was the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time, according to Guinness World Records. Markle, for her part, has only released a children’s book.
Within the seemingly scuppered Random House deal, Page Six was told there were also plans for a potential wellness book by Markle, as well as a book penned by the couple and believed to be about leadership.
Nothing like a giant media company settling out of court with Prince Harry, admitting they committed crimes and apologizing thoroughly… and then that same media company’s American arm turns around and spreads these rumors within 24 hours. “They are just two narcissists.” Your company just had to apologize for committing crimes against that “narcissist.” Anyway, this is all part of a new, stupid campaign against the Sussexes – their marriage isn’t great but they CAN’T get a divorce, because of their couple-brand! If these outlets are so obsessed with Divorce Watch, they should spend two seconds wondering why Prince William has been trying to rebrand himself as a hot single guy for years.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.
