The truth about Harry and Meghan’s grievances? It’s good old sibling rivalry
In the latest trailer the kid gloves come off as the Duke says: ‘They were happy to lie to protect my brother’
‘I was being fed to the wolves,’ says the Duchess, in the vein of Little Red Riding Hood – neglecting to name her tormentor
IT TOOK three slick trailers and three hour-long episodes, but at last we seem to have arrived at the “truth” of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Netflix documentary. And far from love – or even race – being the central theme, like all the most destructive royal tales, sibling rivalry lies at its heart.
There were not-so-subtle clues in Harry & Meghan Volume 1, with the Duke’s reference to “a hierarchy of the family” and the Duchess’s suggestion that the Prince and Princess of Wales’s “formality on the outside carried through on the inside”. We even had Prince Harry’s thinly-disguised jibe about the temptation for Windsor men “to marry someone who would fit the mould as opposed to somebody who you perhaps are destined to be with”. The implication was clear: he married with his heart; Prince William married with his head.
Then there was the seemingly calculated omission of the Prince and Princess of Wales from any of the imagery associated with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding – and the Duke’s steadfast refusal to so much as acknowledge his big brother’s support in the aftermath of their mother’s death.
Keen to avoid any positive references to William whatsoever, Harry described his relationship with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho as “like brothers”, while insisting that “second families” in both Africa and the Army brought him up.
But in the latest trailer, the kid gloves really come off. Claiming he and his wife were the victims of “institutional gaslighting”, Harry says of the palace and/or the media: “They were happy to lie to protect my brother; they were never willing to tell the truth to protect us.” Who the “they” refers to is open to interpretation, but since Harry now seems to think the palace and the press are one and the same thing – after accusing royal correspondents of being “an extended PR arm” of the Royal family – the trailer doesn’t feel the need to be explicit.
Harry and Meghan aren’t big on specifics either, preferring to cast around generalisations in the hope of tarring the entire media with the Twitter trolls’ brush. “I wasn’t being thrown to the wolves, I was being fed to the wolves,” says the Duchess, in the vein of Montecito’s own Little Red Riding Hood – again, neglecting to name her tormentor.
Could “Goodness Grandma, what big tiaras you’ve got?” be one of the stories “they” lied about? Or tears over bridesmaids dresses? Or that tale about Meghan wanting air fresheners inside “musty” St George’s Chapel? Or might it have had something to do with avocados? Thankfully, we only have to wait until Thursday to find out.
Royal aides will doubtlessly be hoping Harry and Meghan stick with their tried and tested “blame the media” strategy, rather than the declaration of war that would be accusing the palace of briefing against them on William’s behalf.
The latter would certainly appear to be a departure from the heir to the throne issuing a statement in November 2016 in which he said he “absolutely understands the situation concerning privacy and supports the need for Prince Harry to support those closest to him”.
As a source told The Daily Telegraph at the time: “The Duke was as alarmed as anyone about what was happening with Meghan.”
Strangely, the couple do not appear poised to mention this, preferring the narrative that they were purposefully hung out to dry. “Our security was being pulled, everyone in the world knew where we were,” recalls Meghan, seemingly forgetting that all this happened after she and her husband took their own decision to “step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal family and work to become financially independent” in January 2020.
The comment, like so many in this series, reflects the sense of entitlement of a couple who were not willing to play second fiddle to anyone. Curtseying to the Queen is mocked. The notion of Meghan having to dress herself, ridiculed. If it wasn’t bad enough that William and Kate had a superior place in the palace pecking order, they also had to put up with them hogging all the positive publicity.
Christopher Bouzy, a long time cheerleader for the Sussexes who analysed the negative social media comments about the Duchess, claims that an orchestrated misinformation campaign was mounted against them. “They were actively recruiting people to disseminate disinformation,” he says.
Again, we don’t know who the “they” is, although it is unlikely to be Sunshine Sachs, the couple’s former PR firm, which was once accused of employing “bare knuckle” tactics to defend Hollywood’s groper-in-chief Harvey Weinstein on social media.
Towards the end of the trailer, Harry insists: “I always felt as though this was a fight worth fighting for,” before adding: “To move to the next chapter, you’ve got to finish the first chapter.”
Yet as anyone who has ever fallen out with a sibling knows, you can never truly close the book on your own family, no matter how much you may have been paid to sell your story.