Do Americans Care About Harry and Meghan?

0:26The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Are Prince Harry and Meghan now irrelevant in America? Sarah Ferguson is humiliated as fears grow for her daughter's marriage and Prince Harry's lawsuit nears its end. I'm Jack Royston, Newsweek's Chief Royal Correspondent, and this is Newsweek's Royal Report. Hello listeners and welcome to the show to Tom Sykes, who is a fantastic Royal Correspondent from the Daily Beast, but also crucially he is the author of the Royalist Newsletter, Substack blog and YouTube channel. So, Tom, thank you very much for joining me. Thanks very much for having me, Jack.

1:02Great to be here. Good, good, good. Right. So what I want to talk about this week is we've had a couple of Harry and Meghan things going on recently. We've had the Variety article, which obviously kind of ripped them to shreds. We also had them speak out this week on Meta and YouTube and, you know, digital harms to children, which is obviously a hugely, hugely important subject. But it kind of felt weird to me because, you know, had they done that back in 2020, come out swinging against two massive digital media companies, I think it would really have felt like something would happen off the back of that.

1:34Like there would be some kind of massive consequence. And it just feels now like they're almost just kind of screaming in a vacuum and that they can do these things. But no one really cares anymore. At least no one in America really cares anymore. And that kind of felt a bit sad on their behalf as a result. but it also got me to thinking, like, maybe it was actually better when they were in Britain and people were hating them. Like, even if you hate it, it still kind of is better than being ignored. And I realised, I was trying to do the maths on it, and I've actually realised now that their flop era, which for me started in the aftermath of Spare, so basically 2023 to 2026, three years now, their flop era has actually outlasted their success era.

2:15So if you think they signed Netflix in September 2020, everyone was hyped about them, seemed like they were going to be a roaring success, but it only really lasted a couple of years. So my question to you, Tom, is, is it better to be hated and cared about than ignored and unable to kind of have an impact on the world? And if that's true, does that mean they should come home? Yes. Well, of course, Jack, there's nothing worse than the chill winds of disinterest is there and that's very much where the couple do find themselves on on a lot of issues and this hopping you know this this band this allegation i suppose that went around some quarters that they were hopping on the bandwagon when it came to this meta judgment i mean okay look they they had nothing to do with that case they they you know they literally had nothing to do with that other than to turn up and support the people.

3:18I felt that fundamentally there's very few parents, I think, out there who wouldn't agree with them on congratulating the litigants, the plaintiffs who won that case against Meta and YouTube. And this was a huge case in California, over$300 million now, the settlement ordered by the judge saying that YouTube and Meta deliberately built in addictive features into their programs and into their products, right? But the problem that I felt they had, Jack, and I don't know what you feel about this, but I felt that the problem that they have about this is that Megan's entire business is on Instagram.

4:10She has 4.4 million followers on Instagram, which presumably makes Mark Zuckerberg quite a lot of money. Yeah, that's true. I actually, for what it's worth, think she should be on YouTube too. But so, you know, maybe I should not be a hypocrite myself. I should probably get that out there. But no, you're right. I mean, but we can't not. And that is where I think it's slightly frustrating. I think they have become frustrated with the fact that it's probably dawned on them privately that they just have to be on these platforms and they can't do that kind of whiter than white, keep our hands clean thing of having nothing to do with it.

4:47And so in a way, it's kind of holding them back from doing anything that would actually have a real impact. But I'm just going to read their statement, which obviously you've read and written about well hang on a sec jack because i think you're right that they have to be on the programs to promote that they have to be on the platforms to promote their businesses but the farming of the children yeah on the platform that's true is totally totally hypocritical and it is absolutely bizarre because we see them having this kind of public argument about it We see Harry saying it's terrible. These are evil people.

5:25Keep your children off these platforms, especially in the era of AI. You don't know what's going to happen to their images. People are farming their minds. Evil men are farming their minds, he said on the Hassan Minaj podcast. We saw him in the high court, Jack, didn't we? We both saw those proceedings in the High Court where Harry said, you know, basically I was made to feel like a performing circus animal. I was commercialized my entire life. I was given no agency. I had no choice about what I did. At that point, a lot of people would probably sympathize with him, I think, on that aspect of it.

6:03I think they absolutely would. And I think they would find it really weird that he's doing exactly the same thing to his own children, especially when one of their best mates is Brooklyn Breckham, right? Who's literally just come out and said, I was completely manipulated by my family, creating their whole life on social media. I didn't have any choice but to play a part in it. and what's so extraordinary about the megan putting the kids on instagram revealing them inch by inch a turn here a face there all that kind of thing like there's no mystery anymore we we know what those kids look like yeah yeah yeah like we don't need ai it's like our brains have filled in the gap we all know exactly what those kids look like they are arguably she has arguably made them the two most famous children in the world.

6:55That is the actual truth of what Meghan in particular has done. And we know that Harry is opposed to it. So I feel confident in saying that this is Meghan who is doing this, who is putting the children on social media. It's half in, half out all over again, basically, isn't it? And you really can't have your cake and eat it too. And the funny thing is, there has been a huge amount of discussion over this policy and strategy from them but it's also you know i i think that audiences actually they feel excited about knowing with the george charlotte and louis birthdays are all coming up well george probably later in the summer but louis is first in the run we'll get some new pictures of them people who are fans of the kids can feel excited about it but they can also feel good about it in quite a simple straightforward way but with megan kind of half putting the kids on and half keeping them back you kind of feel like you're being told well have a look at this thing but maybe feel a bit guilty about feeling you're kind of excited about it because you're kind of being told that the its existence is potentially damaging to the very child that you're supposed to kind of be getting excited about so it is weird and um like you say i mean by this point they might as well just kind of show their actual faces because we've seen so much of them um and or just simply the other solution is just don't trade off motherhood which like i would have a lot of respect for them and honestly i actually think it would probably go better i think everyone can see really the fact that the whole kind of lifestyle thing is basically megan just trying to monetize the life that she has um and what that means she doesn't have to do is just really go out and graft doing things that take her out of the house out of her life she can just kind of like turn the cameras on for a bit and keep keep living the life she's living um but i like it's not worked it's not really exciting enough.

8:42And I think she would have done much better to put less weight on her own shoulders, less weight on her family's shoulders, and just try to find some incredibly talented people to work with who could get her doing content that is better and more exciting and more intrinsically interesting than just basically going about her life and filming it. If she wants to go about her life and film it, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it at all but i think having come out of this made this massive deal about how you were leaving this system because you didn't have any agency because you you were silenced because you were like a songbird with its throat with its tongue cut out you know all these kind of allegations that that your life was manipulated and that your husband's life was manipulated and commercialized by this huge organization and that you you had to leave it and then to set up a kind of ersatz royal family yourself where you seem to be doing exactly the same thing you seem to be marketing the children you seem to be using the children to enhance your brand it don't seem to be you are using your children to enhance your brand in exactly the same way as the royals do and the irony is jack Like if you look at George and Louis and Charlotte, you see, because they have agreed to an access system, because the UK media agrees with it, those kids actually have quite a normal life.

10:06They go and play sport. They do the school run. They go to their friends' houses. They go to kids' parties. And people don't take photographs of them because if they do, like the UK newspapers aren't going to buy them. And the international media just causes a massive amount of problem because you're up against the British state. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you're up against the British state if you want to photograph those kids. Well, this is why this is the advantage of Britain for Harry and Meghan compared to America, which, you know, obviously an undersold aspect of our country, to be fair. In Harry and Meghan's original narrative about the media is that actually there were really strong protections in place in Britain via the European Convention on Human Rights.

10:46It was made part of British law in 1997 in the Human Rights Act, and it establishes this right to privacy. and that privacy exists even when you're in a public place, if you're going about your private life. And it's something that British newspapers and news organisations are really aware of. And there have been times, you know, even at Newsweek, where somebody has seen on social media videos of George, Charlotte and Louis just going about their private lives, you know, landing somewhere in an airport, you know, airside in an airport where they're not technically in the public domain. and a newsweek report of an america u.s based american newsweek reporter has just thought that that was a cute thing to do a story about and i had to say to them look we really have to speak to kentington palace about this um and make sure that they're not gonna send us a legal letter because under british law like these kids are in britain and under british law there are privacy protections and newspapers have been sued you know paul weller famously sued the mail um for photographing um actually he was in california but he sued the mail through the uk courts to establish the privacy rights of his children while in public in California, where those laws do not exist.

11:53And one, because children, the level of privacy attached to children's images is so high in Britain. But one of the arguments put forwards is that if you photograph a child's face and you publish a visible image of a child's face, you convey to the public the child's emotions, like the public can read the emotions of the child on the physical image of their face. and therefore that is intrusive into the internal world of the child. That just does not exist in US law. It is not a thing in US law. If they came back to Britain, they would have all of those protections, which I suppose arguably, the kids have not been papped in America for a very long time.

12:34Do you remember the incident in Texas? They were photographed by the public when they went to Texas with the kids just to take part, and I think it was the 4th of July parade. But we haven't even had anything like that in a very, very long time. Literally, the only person who's putting photographs of those children into the public domain is Meghan. Yeah, yeah. So I actually, I think that although coming back to the United Kingdom might solve some problems for them, as unpopular as it would be with people in the UK, it wouldn't solve the problem of your mum putting endless photos of you on Instagram.

13:08Do you think that, let's say she did just put pictures of her face, Or let's say she'd never done this thing where she posts half the face or there's like an emoji over the face. Do you think people would say that they're hypocrites? Is this partly to try to unwire an unexploded bomb of people saying, oh, well, you know, you're talking about privacy all the time, but you're hypocrites because you're putting your kids online? Or is it just that Harry, is it all basically Harry's own experiences as a child and his own determination that they should not experience what he experienced? Well, I think it is deeply hypocritical.

13:44And I think that the problem is, is that Harry keeps saying that it is. So it's creating this very odd, although they were told that everything is perfect and dreamy and Harry's sitting in his office munching white chocolate. it creates this very odd public narrative where one member of the family is literally litigating stuff through the courts from 25 years ago claiming that his privacy was invaded that he was commercialized you know is the word that he used a lot in that high court case and uh you know that he was exploited and that his image was manipulated in the service of the institution and et cetera, et cetera.

14:24And the other half of the couple is doing exactly the same. I think if they had never put the kids online, I think the criticism of hypocrisy would be much less because I think you can just head that off at the pass by going, well, you know, we're adults and we need to promote our business. We're all on social media. I'm on social media. You're on social media. We're on social media. But I mean, I don't put photographs of my kids online. I don't like say to people, oh yeah, come and watch my YouTube channel. here's like a cute photo of my kids playing i would never do that i just find it so i find it such a weird thing to do to like your three-year-old child why why haven't said you know that a big part of why you needed to move was for your privacy and for your privacy into you know all these kinds of things why then set about making your children the most famous children in the world why why do that yeah indeed so first first question then what do you think their situation in America is now, do Americans still care?

15:23If no, do they come back to Britain in your view? I suspect that, well, we know that Harry wants to spend more time in the UK. We know that for a fact. I think we also know that Meghan doesn't. And I think that creates another problem for them. I think it'd be very interesting when they come back in June for the Invictus one year to go thing. Do they have the security by then? Does Megan come? What does the security look like? I think if they get some security, it's probably not going to be an exact replica of what they had before. So I think we'll have to wait and see what happens when they come back in June.

16:10There was some rumors that they might come back before that. I don't think those are going to happen now. I think the first time we'll see them will be in June for the one year to go in Victor's thing. Well, with Australia in particular, I mean, that's going to be a big trip, isn't it? Yeah, that's going to be a huge trip. I suspect they're going to try and keep out of the public eye as much as possible. I think that they're both going to do their one paid talk that they're doing. And then I suspect that everything they'll try and keep it as low profile as possible and just film stuff and release stuff on their own term.

16:46because people don't seem very happy in Australia about the prospect of them coming, to put it mildly. But then this goes back to that same point, which is, you know, I kind of think that they just need to start embracing the hate because, like, they are now relentlessly hated on both sides of the Atlantic and, you know, in other territories like Australia. And it was quite striking to me to see. So, you know, I went through all the data on where Meghan's website traffic is coming from, and only about 30 to 40 percent of it is coming from America. You've got 10 percent from Canada, 10 percent from Britain, 10 percent from Australia, approximately.

17:26And, you know, those are the monarchist territories. You know, those are the territories that recognize the king as head of state. And I think they just need to accept now that, you know, they've messed it up by trying to blow up the monarchy when those people are the very people who were interested in them. But now, if you're going to run a business like as ever, you have to run it for the people who are interested in you. And actually, the haters are more interested in them now than the kind of progressive young people who they were trying to appeal to. Because to progressive young people, Harry and Meghan are just as privileged as the rest of the monarchy.

17:59There's no difference. like Meghan married in and Harry was born in a palace. There's absolutely no difference in the eyes of, you know, a Gen Z or even a Gen Alpha person who is preparing to have a really hard time establishing themselves in the world of work. It's going to have to slog their guts out only to potentially be replaced by AI as soon as they're trying to get their feet off the ground. And there is absolutely no difference, you know, and Meghan and Harry live in a mansion. so why would you be a hero or poster child of the progressive left to a young audience that's more concerned about Gaza more concerned about Trump and Iran more concerned about inflation and actually Harry and Meghan can't really talk about any of those issues properly in a way that appeals to that young audience that expect no holes barred no nonsense they expect nothing short of calling Gaza a genocide.

18:55They expect nothing short of, you know, your full unbridled opinion, and they have no interest in diplomatic language or charity projects that are supposed to be politically neutral. So, you know, like, where does that leave them? You just have to go for the people who are still paying attention. And the people who are still paying attention to Harry and Meghan, the data shows that we have data that shows that the people who care, who are still paying attention to them are the people who hate them, but they are curious about them and they will probably buy some products like that's it they will buy it they'll buy her as of a jam just to see if they hate it or not well uh what i do always say to people about this is that um specifically harry i i agree that that megan is a very divisive figure and almost universally quite unpop very unpopular but actually harry it's it's interesting when you actually look at the YouGov poll in the UK, which is the most detailed polling and which breaks it down by age and all that kind of stuff.

19:56When you actually look at that polling, Harry always is almost just about exactly as popular or as unpopular, depending which way you want to put it, as Queen Camilla. He hovers on around about 33, 34, 35%, which is the same as what Camilla hovers around. But what's really interesting about Harry is that he's almost universally hated by anyone over the age of about 45 and almost universally loved by anyone under the age of about 24, 25. So it's actually a little bit more complex. Now, I agree with you that those people under the age of 24, 25 aren't going to be sitting around buying jam. You know, I do believe that the commercial business, frankly, is just really not going to work terribly well, whatever they say about it's an exciting new dawn, et cetera, et cetera.

20:47I don't think it probably is going terribly well. But what I do think is that the British legacy media have an interest in talking up how popular Camilla is. So if you were to read the British newspapers, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the universal opinion of Camilla is that she's jolly marvellous and she's a wonderful good egg. And we're all delighted with her because she's brought salvation to Charles and she's great. Now, that's not actually how people feel. That is the triumph of the palace's press office manipulating the media. Well done to them. They've done a good job and well done, Camilla.

21:29She's chatted up the journalists, et cetera, et cetera. That's everyone's job. I don't dispute that. But what I think is really interesting is that if you actually talk to people in a pub and ask them what they think of Camilla, they're not particularly impressed by her. They find the whole, for them, when people talk about the Queen, there'll only be one Queen. That was Queen Elizabeth II, right? But similarly, when you talk about Harry to people, there's actually a bit more fondness, a bit more respect, a bit more. He's still the guy people would like to have a pint with. And on that note, I'm going to take a quick break, but don't forget to rate and review The Royal Report on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your favourite shows.

22:13And of course, we are now a YouTube show too, so don't forget to like and subscribe if you're watching there. And when I'm back, Sarah Ferguson has lost the freedom of the city of York.

22:28Welcome back to the show, and Tom is still with me, so thank you very much, Tom, for sticking around to discuss the York family. And we have in particular this week, Sarah Ferguson has had this humiliation, which is that she's lost the freedom of the city of York, which, you know, in fairness is an accolade that she probably seldom used. I don't think she spent very much time in York exercising her right to the freedom of the city. But I think what it really symbolizes, actually, is the fact that the toxicity and radioactivity of the Epstein scandal is spreading beyond Andrew, and that the wider York family are now being kind of exorcised from all of these aspects of British public life.

23:09and Fergie's humiliation in relation to her freedom of the city of York, it comes at the same time that the Mail on Sunday are speculating that all is not well in Princess Beatrice's marriage to Eduardo Mapelli-Mozzi, who is an Italian aristocrat. Now, obviously, he has his business interests, and I think part of the speculation is around the idea that actually the distance might be to protect his own business interests, that, you know, in a sense, Edo, as he's known, is doing the same thing as the city of York are doing, as the councillors in York are doing, that he is creating this distance in order to protect his commercial interests, which is, you know, a hugely cynical way to read his behaviour.

23:55But at the same time, you know, what is your view? Well, I mean, I do know people who know, particularly Beatrice, you know, who lives here. obviously um my sort of contacts would know that that world better because eugenie lives in portugal and lives quite a quiet life and to to just to clarify i don't think there's any speculation that eugenie's marriage is in trouble i think that that what was said about that was that jack had just said i don't want your mother coming to live with us which i think is a reasonable fair enough it's probably been looking forward to saying that for quite a few years actually He's just finally got the excuse.

24:34Yeah, yeah. But Beatrice and Eddo, I mean, look, they're obviously a high-profile couple where they live. I had a report earlier in the year from somebody saying that Beatrice was incredibly stressed out, that she couldn't eat, that she couldn't sleep, that she was miserable. And I suppose what's interesting about this report in the Mail on Sunday, saying that the marriage was in trouble and that there's distance in the marriage and loads and loads of implications without actually saying anything is that it was written by Charlotte Griffiths, who will be familiar to anyone who's followed this story.

25:11She was part of Prince Harry's, she was a witness in Prince Harry's court case. She had an astonishing story to tell in court, which was that she was at a dinner party with Prince William three days before he announced that Catherine was pregnant for the first time. And William turned up and said, oh, sorry, I'm late. Catherine's not going to be joining us because she's got morning sickness because we're pregnant. Everyone went, oh, hooray. And she didn't run the story or publish the story according to her sworn testimony in court. So Charlotte Griffiths is generally like the male, the male's USP, right, has always been high grade social gossip.

25:55And Charlotte Griffiths is at the kind of tip of the spear. She's a roving editor at large now, isn't she? But she was the diary editor for a long time and she partied with Prince Harry. And she's got lots of connections in that whole kind of royal adjacent set of high society people. Exactly. So Charlotte Griffiths is very much at the apex of the Daily Mail's stock in trade, which is well-sourced society gossip. And that's fundamentally why it's being taken seriously by people like me. Now, additionally, I happen to have had this story earlier in the year that Beatrice was incredibly upset, was incredibly stressed out, that she couldn't eat and she couldn't sleep.

26:41and I felt that Charlotte Griffith's story put a bit more explanation into why Beatrice might have been feeling like that to be honest Edo you know it's slightly odd he was he just was one day engaged to Dara Huang who'll be familiar to our watchers from from Ladies of London she didn't have the best run on that show and the next day he's like with Beatrice and he's left a two-year-old kid but you know we that that was kind of let go by the media in another world you can see the media go it going for that so i think i think there's a feeling rightly or wrongly that edo has form for walking out on long relationships where he has children and so if charlotte griffiths is saying this i think people are entitled to take it seriously yeah Indeed.

27:37And it would like it would put strain on the marriage. I'm sure it has put strain on both marriages. You know, Jack Brooksbank, no doubt standing by Eugenie. But I mean, it would be like it would be very difficult to have somebody's, you know, family life blow up so dramatically in such a public way where you could actually read the emails for yourself being sent between, you know, Andrew and Fergie and Epstein. But then there's also the points at which Beatrice and Eugenie have started to get sucked into it. And it would be very difficult to be the partner and just be like, oh, wow, actually your mum took you to see a convicted paedophile while he was under house arrest.

28:19Like, that is wild. and then also the efforts that Epstein was making to try to get Beatrice and Eugenie to basically you know escort or give tours to Buckingham Palace Buckingham as he amusingly called it not realizing that that's a town northwest of London but yeah Buckingham Palace no doubt to his you know to his mates to his friends and you know it seems like maybe Beatrice and Eugenie sensibly said no to those requests but it's very clear that Epstein was trying to manipulate Fergie into providing him with access to Beatrice and Eugenie. Now, maybe Jack Brooksbank has turned around and, you know, he sees Eugenie as the victim of that.

29:00And somebody who, you know, who has actually is a survivor of her parents, terrible, terrible, terrible parenting, you know, survivor of having, you know, probably the worst parents in Britain. But then I could definitely see it's a personality thing, isn't it? another person might start to think like, well, you know, did you, did the girls tell their husbands how involved in all of this they were? Like, if you weren't told how involved they were, you would start to think like, well, what else are you not telling me? Like, it's, you know, it must, it's something that I've never had to go through in my marriage, I'm pleased to say, but like, it would shock you, wouldn't it?

29:39It would go quite deep, I think. Well, I think that Beatrice is clearly much closer to the scandal than Eugenie is, in my opinion. So tell me why. know was present at the negotiations of the news night interview beatrice has always acted as a kind of informal advisor to sarah ferguson if you want to have if you have a meeting with sarah ferguson beatrice would often be by her side as kind of translating sarah's mad stream of consciousness thoughts into human um and so beatrice i think it's fair to say is more connected and we've seen also of course her deals in the middle east we saw that she was in saudi arabia the day that andrew was stripped of his titles hosting a pay-per-play um afternoon tea at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh that was of course famously used by Mohammed bin Salman as a jail during his crackdown of a couple of years ago.

30:53Beatrice seems much more closely connected to the net to Andrew's networks than Eugenie does. Eugenie seems to have very much decided to step away to move overseas and do something very very different. Yeah indeed and now just before we wrap things up, I want you to talk viewers through an incredible story that you had over the weekend that I loved, which was to do with Fergie and Corgis. Can you tell us a bit about that? How has Fergie and the Queen's Corgis upset members of the royal family? The Mail had this brilliant story saying that Fergie had planned to clone the Corgis for an American reality TV show, which prompted me I've been sitting on this story for a while because I want to use it for a secret project that I'm working on, Jack, that you know about.