Just call me Harry. (Everything Harry & Meghan)

[Lemonade20]

People will always be divided over them. Personally I just want H&M to stop talking about the firm and start living their own lives. They made the decision to step away, yet they're still making news for the wrong reasons.

 

[Spikefan]

So politico has a story about how Harry and Meghan have become part of the culture wars:

Opinion | Why Are American Conservatives Siding With the Royal Family?

Harry and Meghan’s struggle is a Rorschach test for whether you look at problems as a liberal or a conservative.

www.politico.com

Not surprising, conservatives would love a Trump monarchy.

 

[overedge]

"worst royal crisis in 85 years"? coughAndrewbeingfriendswithpedophilesextraffickercough

Newspaper headlines: Palace 'reeling' over Meghan and Harry 'bombshell' interview

Most front pages report on the fallout from Meghan and Prince Harry's interview with Oprah Winfrey.

www.bbc.com

 

[Polaris]

Not surprising, conservatives would love a Trump monarchy.

Eh. Americans have an absurd fascination with royalty and are constantly on the lookout to crown their own American Royalty. Conservatives were obsessed with the Bush dynasty, now the Trump "monarchy". Liberals are continually obsessed about the Kennedy dynasty. The royal obsession cuts both ways of politics.

 

[Yehudi]

deleted.

 

[becca]

"worst royal crisis in 85 years"? coughAndrewbeingfriendswithpedophilesextraffickercough

Newspaper headlines: Palace 'reeling' over Meghan and Harry 'bombshell' interview

Most front pages report on the fallout from Meghan and Prince Harry's interview with Oprah Winfrey.

www.bbc.com

Yeah Andrew is worse

 

[kwanfan1818]

I originally posted this in the wrong thread.

The TV critic for The New Yorker, Doreen St. Felix, has weighed in on the interview:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/the-rigorous-empathy-of-oprah-with-meghan-and-harry

 

[Judy]

I actually sort of wonder if Harry has untreated PTSD from his tours to Afghanistan.
His sensitivity to lightbulbs from the press sounds like PTSD, where bright lights and noises can trigger you.

In the bookafter he returned or retired it said he had panic attacks and anger issues (I think it said anger) and that he had breakdowns. William had to intercede to get him help.

I don’t think that is unusual for returning military.

 

[Prancer]

Personally I just want H&M to stop talking about the firm and start living their own lives. They made the decision to step away, yet they're still making news for the wrong reasons.

Yet here you are.

 

[Karen-W]

Finally watching the interview, here are my thoughts (beyond what has already been hashed out discussed)...

1) The racism comment - Meghan fully admits that it wasn't made to her, that Harry relayed the comment/s to her but she was never able to "follow up" on it. My take is that, at some point during her pregnancy, she and Harry were having that typical "oh, what will our baby look like" conversation and Harry probably shared the conversation he had with a family member when they were first dating, thinking it was cute or funny and Meghan was, understandably, horrified. I imagine she probably explained to Harry why that question/comment bothered her coming from another member of his family and Harry realized it was an offensive question but, at the time (and still now) didn't want to openly/directly confront the family member about it.

So, what we have is Meghan being upset (and they probably had more than one conversation while she was pregnant about it) and unable to let it go. Whether her inability to let it go is healthy or good is debatable - I think there is validity in not letting it go because it is something that is hurtful and offensive to POC, but I also think there is validity in being able to let it go because sometimes it's better to just let it become water under the bridge for the overall peace within the family.

Of course, the other view is that she is unwilling to let it go because she wants to use it to present a "the BRF is racist" narrative and, frankly, it's the one that I'm more inclined to believe because of how dodgy she was with that whole line of questioning as well as Harry's response.

2) The timeline of their "discussions to quit the BRF" - Meghan clearly says "in the 2 years we'd been talking about it" - so, they were discussing leaving before they even got married? They really thought that their status as members of the BRF would enable them to set up shop in any Commonwealth country (specifically mentioned Canada) as "non-senior Royals" who occasionally did events representing the Queen but earned their own living. These two... Really did not think any of the actual legalities through of any of what they proposed and when they got asked these questions, probably by the staff members who were working through the logistics/finances of this idea, they didn't like the response to their answers. Hah - and yeah, Charles definitely stopped taking Harry's calls when he got exasperated with Harry's over-the-top demands.

3) The Little Mermaid analogy - oh, bleh. That's such a weak analogy it's not even funny.

4) Harry has some deep-seated mental health issues that he has never worked through. Why couldn't he admit to his family that Meghan was suffering so much mental health trauma? And, boy, is he a narcissistic little man-child. I'm more convinced than ever that all Meghan did was enable Harry to do what he's wanted to do for years - leave. In that regard, I don't necessarily hold her accountable or blame her.

5) "Oh, it all changed after Australia - they were jealous, Meghan was a star"... Uhm, yeah... Meanwhile, the BRF has carried on in a far more impactful manner during the past year than anything that H&M have done since they relocated to the States. So, yeah, nah... Keep telling yourselves that it was "the Firm" that dimmed her/their spotlight.

6) LOL@ Meghan being willing to sacrifice her & Archie's safety/security "as long as you keep my husband safe and don't remove his security". Okay, then...

7) There were some interesting micro-expressions that I am surprised others here didn't pick up on. When Meghan was talking about how she received no "training" on how to be a royal, Harry starts to clarify and she reaches over to touch his hand and keep him from speaking. No, no, no, this is clearly Meghan's story to tell, and he is only there to support her version.

8) Did Oprah really not research Harry's previous interviews before this one? Harry's given multiple interviews in the past where he's said if he could, he'd run off to Africa instead of being a senior royal, but he couldn't because of his loyalty/duty to his father/brother. So, yeah, not really, again, buying that Meghan is solely responsible for Sussexit. Harry was, 100%, I agree, fully complicit. He just didn't get any of what he thought he was going to get by virtue of being... HRH Prince Harry Son of Diana??? He is most certainly his mother's son.

9) I'd be hard-pressed, if I was either William or Charles (or most of the rest of the BRF) to not tell Harry to "lose my number". Especially with his "I'm trying to educate them in much the same way I've been educated" comment.

Yeah, there's a reason why your relationship with William right now is "space" and I suspect that it will be a very, very long time before any wounds are healed.

10) Back to some of those micro-expressions - Oh, when Harry clarified when the "what will your babies look like" question occurred (early on when they were dating)... Meghan turned to Oprah and her face was "oh, sh*t, is she going to ask me a follow-up to clarify the timing of those conversations?"

11) "Life is about storytelling, right? About the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we're told, what we buy into, and for us to be able to have storytelling through a truthful lens, that's hopefully uplifting, is gonna be great, knowing how many people that can land with and being able to give a voice to a lot of people that are underrepresented and aren't really heard." And there you have it... It's all about "storytelling, what we buy into, from a truthful lens"

12) "All those things I was hoping for have happened" - oh, there are going to be Meghan detractors who make much of that...

 

[MacMadame]

So many different takes on this.

Is Meghan and Harry's interview a bigger crisis for the monarchy than the Diana scandal?

Meghan's powerfully honest admission in her conversation with Oprah is likely to be as explosive as Princess Diana's sit-down with the BBC's Martin Bashir back in 1995 -- which helped spark a crisis that took the monarchy years to recover from.

www.cnn.com

Meghan and Harry Go to War

The Oprah interview proved that the duchess won’t be silenced.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Polaris]

Too many American takes on the situation. I wanna hear the British take. Whether or not this ends the monarchy is in the hands of the Brits.

 

[starrynight]

Too many American takes on the situation. I wanna hear the British take. Whether or not this ends the monarchy is in the hands of the Brits.

Doubtful this will impact the British monarchy too much in the long term from a British perspective honestly. The Queen is very popular and not much will change that.

 

[kwanfan1818]

The Queen is in her '90's. We'll see what happens within a decade from now.

 

[skatfan]

Former royal security unit chief: No way they could keep bodyguards

The assumption by Harry that tax-payers would fund security after he and Meghan left the UK was branded 'arrogant' and 'unworkable' by former chief superintendent Dai Davies.

www.dailymail.co.uk

One could point out that Harry had a job that paid for security and quit it. And moved to a place where security would be ridiculously expensive.

it’s more than a little bit entitled to expect prince Charles to foot the bill.

Yes and, we saw what happened when Diana didn’t have security after her divorce. Does the Royal family really want blood on their hands?

I get that the Crown wasn’t going to pay indefinitely, but it sounded like the plug was pulled quickly rather than giving them time to figure out a plan. They raced to the US before the borders closed and Tyler Perry did what the Crown would not do. A mess.

 

[Karen-W]

The Queen is in her '90's. We'll see what happens within a decade from now.

Charles will be popular, probably more popular after this because Meghan and Harry really threw him under the bus and I think a lot of Brits are going to appreciate that he was trying to streamline/reduce the HRHs and keep costs down.

Already the snap YouGov polls, before the interview even aired in the UK tonight, were trending against H&M doing this interview and I suspect, tomorrow the snap polls will be even more supportive of the Queen, Charles and William than they were today.

 

[Polaris]

Doubtful this will impact the British monarchy too much in the long term from a British perspective honestly. The Queen is very popular and not much will change that.

This. Which is why I find it presumptuous and arrogant for Americans to be hollering so loudly about a foreign institution that they have no say in. I don't even think the Brits are this worked up or obsessed about the monarchy.

 

[Allskate]

I think the fact that this is being treated as some kind of injustice is very strange. Don't all regular people have to work to pay for themselves? Harry did have a job that paid for the security, but he quit it. So then it follows that he needed to find a new job.

Welcome to the real world.

How many people in your world have extremely high security costs merely because of the family they were born into? It's one thing to say that someone isn't going to be compensated for appearances if they aren't making appearances, or that they will get paid less for making fewer appearances. It's a whole other thing to say that someone's security will be not be paid for (and they and their immediate family will quickly be put in jeopardy) if they don't do what the people holding the purse strings want them to do. Harry has been trotted out for public consumption since the day he was born. He literally had to do a funeral walk for his mother when he was a child - with massive numbers of people watching. I think it's crazy that they said that, if he doesn't do what they tell him to do, including keeping his mouth shut even while lies are being told, that his security won't be paid for. Especially after what happened with Diana. I don't see how you fix a relationship after that kind of thing. I don't see how someone can have any respect or trust for the people doing that or allowing it.

I'm not sure how much Harry and Meghan helped themselves with this interview, especially since so many people already had their minds made up. But, unlike the rest of the family, at least they spoke directly to an interviewer instead of just gutlessly - and perhaps dishonestly - working through the trashy tabloids. It seems pretty obvious that the rest of the family is going to the media, too, but just in other ways.

 

[allezfred]

Piers Morgan got called out for his hard on of hate for Meghan Markle live on air this morning and he flounces off set.

https://twitter.com/chrisrickett/status/1369177870191460353?s=21

 

[marbri]

Piers Morgan got called out for his hard on of hate for Meghan Markle live on air this morning and he flounces off set.

https://twitter.com/chrisrickett/status/1369177870191460353?s=21

If anything good comes out of this circus may it be the end of Piers Morgan. I don't know much about Alex Beresford but what a calm voice amidst all the shouting in that segment. Shame Piers threw his toys out of the pram and interrupted him.

 

[becca]

Yes and, we saw what happened when Diana didn’t have security after her divorce. Does the Royal family really want blood on their hands?

I get that the Crown wasn’t going to pay indefinitely, but it sounded like the plug was pulled quickly rather than giving them time to figure out a plan. They raced to the US before the borders closed and Tyler Perry did what the Crown would not do. A mess.

Yes but where is Harry and Meghan’s responsiblity here. They had a job that offered them free security. Charles shelled millions for them. Millions

They decided to move somewhere the security costs would skyrocket to unreasonable levels. This article talked about from 500k to like millions?

Why is it the British people or the British royal families responsibility to pay for the security of a royal family member who chooses to Move overseas? Key word chooses. With no concern about costs? And expects to pay for it?


Harry has enough money in his inheritance where he could have moved somewhere very quiet and secluded. Paid for security and saved money for his kids for the rest of his life. But he didn’t want that lifestyle.

Have you not had people in your life who you offered to help who shunned your help and insisted on unreasonable things to the point where you said you know what your on own?

Meghan and Harry could have quit the royal family business but still lived in Britain where their housing was paid for and their security would have been at way more reasonable levels.

At the end of the day Archie is Meghan and Harry’s son not Charles . Meghan and Harry chose to leave and took Charles grandson where it would be next to impossible for Charles to be a regular presence in his life. Without even thinking about the huge costs that occurred.

And someone it’s Charlie’s responsibility to foot the bill for that lifestyle and their choices.

 

[morqet]

Too many American takes on the situation. I wanna hear the British take. Whether or not this ends the monarchy is in the hands of the Brits.

My take, which is broadly similar to most of my friends, is that they are all self obsessed, useless representatives of an obsolete institution, that I would rather is abolished, but we will probably not do anything about them any time soon beyond potentially cutting back the Sovereign Grant because it's hard and complicated and frankly there are much more pressing challenges facing the country.

What baffles me is why people from outside the UK are so invested and have such strong opinions about a family who have very little real power and have done nothing to earn a spotlight or respect for their opinions on pretty much anything. (My one exception to this is that I find Charles's long term custodial approach as landowner to developing Poundbury & Nansledan very interesting, but that's because it overlaps with my professional interests, and it's more about the Duchy as an institution than Charles as an individual. It doesn't mean that I would want to listen to him about anything else) And the handwringing over the tax costs of security/weddings/household renovations; it has nothing to do with anyone outside the UK, why do you care and fight over it so much??

 

[marbri]

My take, which is broadly similar to most of my friends, is that they are all self obsessed, useless representatives of an obsolete institution, that I would rather is abolished, but we will probably not do anything about them any time soon beyond potentially cutting back the Sovereign Grant because it's hard and complicated and frankly there are much more pressing challenges facing the country.

What baffles me is why people from outside the UK are so invested and have such strong opinions about a family who have very little real power and have done nothing to earn a spotlight or respect for their opinions on pretty much anything. (My one exception to this is that I find Charles's long term custodial approach as landowner to developing Poundbury & Nansledan very interesting, but that's because it overlaps with my professional interests, and it's more about the Duchy as an institution than Charles as an individual. It doesn't mean that I would want to listen to him about anything else) And the handwringing over the tax costs of security/weddings/household renovations; it has nothing to do with anyone outside the UK, why do you care and fight over it so much??

Although I would say when the first moved to Canada there were debates about security costs because when Royals travel to commonwealth countries those countries pay towards the costs so I did have an opinion then

 

[morqet]

Also I pretty much agree with this take, particularly the final paragraphs.

Harry and Meghan: The union of two great houses, the Windsors and the Celebrities, is complete

After Harry and Meghan, the monarchy looks archaic and racist. Well duh

www.irishtimes.com

Harry revealed their next child’s gender – it’s a girl – in this interview, but Harry and Meghan are also pregnant with a nascent media empire and lucrative Spotify and Netflix contracts. Of course, their critics accuse them of being money-hungry careerists for this, but that’s hilarious coming from sycophants to hereditary tax-suckling grifters. Arranging a Netflix deal that the couple actually have to work for is pretty benign royal behaviour when you compare it with conquest and general parasitism.

 

[becca]

Although I would say when the first moved to Canada there were debates about security costs because when Royals travel to commonwealth countries those countries pay towards the costs so I did have an opinion then

Not just that when members of the royal family stay here in the US we typically pay for the security so yes that would affect us too.

The problem I have here is little responsibility taking for Meghan or Harry. This is Harry’s wife if her mental health isn’t good why didn’t he call a psychiatrist?

I am not calling into question her mental health. I think that lifestyle can be horrifically tough.

And also if they want others to pay for their security dont they have a responsibility to ensure the security costs are reasonable? That they don’t move where these costs will sky rocket

I mean in their manifesto it was clear they always expected others to pay for their security

 

[marbri]

Under what circumstances would US taxpayers pay for royal security? Seems odd?

 

[starrynight]

Under what circumstances would US taxpayers pay for royal security? Seems odd?

I think it would only be if the royals were in the US on an offical visit.

 

[skategal]

I wanna hear the British take. Whether or not this ends the monarchy is in the hands of the Brits.

I think this will have a bigger impact in the Commonwealth countries, many of whom are majority POC and especially ones who have already been questioning why they should stay under a Constitutional Monarchy.

 

[allezfred]

Irish author Emma Dabiri really hits the nail on the head when talking about race in British society. It applies just as much to other predominantly white societies as well. It’s a lack of honesty about our history that is causing so much of these problems.

https://twitter.com/emmadabiri/status/1369257473417371671?s=21

 

[mackiecat]

I may be confused about the timelines here, but if Harry had access to enough money from his mother's estate to buy an expensive house, could he also have paid for his family's own security when the royal security coverage was removed?

I assume that it would take time to find an appropriate security team though