Where William and Harry Went Wrong

31:27And I think that tells you, again, an interesting dynamic of William's view and the rest of his family. And do you think he's worried about the future? I mean, I suppose probably when you did a lot of work to produce this book, because the publishing industry doesn't move as fast as news, a lot of the recent developments must not actually have happened yet. But then now we've all been talking in terms of whether this could mean the end of the monarchy. I mean, do you think that that was ever on William's radar during the years that you've covered in the book? Well, the book takes you right up pretty much to the end of 2025.

32:02so you know the the titles and the honors have been stripped by the king by that point i think in the recent weeks of course we've seen uh Andrew being arrested the 10 police investigations that are currently ongoing where will that take the um you know certainly Andrew's position and indeed the perception of the wider monarchy and i do come to this several times but William's view of what the monarchy has to be in the modern world and indeed Catherine's as well they're very aligned on this it how does it need to be more accountable how does it need to be more relatable we we are the the uh maybe we're a bit too old jack but we're we're now in the instagram generation aren't we so there is that the the the perception of the slow-mo videos you press a button doing this the mother nature videos speaking to millions of people all at one time that's all well and good but there are huge issues at the center of the monarchy i think Charles had foreseen that being too bloated, talking about Simdam monarchy.

33:00But how does it represent the people? And it certainly doesn't represent the people if there's infighting within the family. The Harry and Meghan situation was, of course, a huge, huge flashpoint for the monarchy. But again, why had Andrew been allowed to get away with his behaviour for so long? I mean, that is nothing to do with the allegations that he's facing that he's denied. but it's more a case of character attitude you know what is what um what is the sense of entitlement and privilege being used and william and catherine can't get away from that you know they do live in this huge eight bedroom house you know the run of castles and palaces helicopters what have you there's no getting away from the privilege but it is a it's a matter of personality and character and certainly andrew didn't fit into that mold at all indeed and it is a matter of personality and character.

33:53But then there's also this underlying question, which I just want to just say, unequivocally, beyond doubt, there is no moral equivalence between Andrew and Meghan. There just is absolutely none, totally different categories, totally different ballparks, totally different leagues. And the allegations against Andrew are so, so, so much worse. There's no comparison. However, there is a commonality of problem for how the monarchy reacts to family members who are behaving in a way that the wider family considers to be wrong and refuse to stop or change. And that is a problem that speaks to the systems and structure of monarchy.

34:34And William, obviously, is going to inherit that monarchy. And I'm interested in whether you've got any sense of whether, you know, we hear a lot about how he wants to change the monarchy, whether you've got a sense of whether he wants to build any kind of systems or structure around, you know, how to handle like royal disciplinary proceedings, you know, the concept of a royal who's done something wrong and now the monarchy needs to react. Well, it kept coming up and it was explained to me like the phrase corporate like structure. And I think that we touched upon that earlier about having a CEO in the foundation, having a definite structure within the media team and the private secretaries.

35:13Typically, you've always had private secretaries and their teams working out everything from future public work to the perception of how the individual wanted to formulate their ideas and where they wanted to work both at home and abroad and yet I think the lines can be blurred in that sense of protecting the institution what is the effect on the institution rather than the individual And if you do have this corporate structure, maybe that will formulate an HR department. Maybe that will formulate relative directors of certain departments. I just think it will be much more accountable and there will be a clear line of structure within the household that will make it much more applicable to running it like a business.

36:03Because you do have to have that attitude. I think that certainly the fact that the king has had to come out and speak about the law must take it course, even the very fact that the king has had to say that makes you feel that the institution does really feel on the back foot. that that gosh are people now thinking that he Andrew has been protected for too long from this institution he was not stripped to be side who is not sort of um there was no statement about the alleged wrongdoing at the time and there was the perception that he was he was uh protected and so you know there is um there's a lot for William and Catherine to think about in the in the future I don't think it's good for business is it if there's a lot of a talk about the work that you are, talk about the way that you're not doing, and more talk about the characters who are not central to the wider institution.

37:00And do you think that the monarchy can, let's say, we don't know whether Andrew gets charged or not. It might be that the Crown Prosecution Service determined that there's no basis to charge him. It may be that they can't even get the unredacted documents out of the DOJ in America to bring the prosecution. But in the event that Andrew were to be charged do you think the monarchy can survive a trial well i mean let's talk about survival of monarchy because i think that that's come up quite a lot recently i think the yes the monarchy will survive if they definitely think it has to make changes we've heard william speak about change for good and uh those are the foundations of what he wants to bring in i think it would be healthy to have this more like corporate structure more accountability i mean gosh if there was a trial and of course I think we are a long long way off from that there are 10 investigations that are currently being assessed at the moment there is talk of difficulty I understand of perhaps even charging because whether Andrew was a public servant was he being paid for this role we know he wasn't and of course he was living it high on the hog with his expenses but what are the parameters of charging.

38:10Now, Thames Valley Police, we know, had spoken to Crown prosecutors before arresting him. What will come out from not only the Buckingham Palace files, the logs of who he was having at Royal Residences, but also diplomatic cables as well, were the complaints about his behaviour. Who knew? Who was CC'd into any emails within the palace? And that may be more damaging in the short term because it speaks to the culture that was allowed to exist at the palace so you know maybe one for another day because I think we are the queen queen is for the second may wind up being one of the people who does not come out squeaky clean from that process absolutely and that has that has come up because you know is her legacy about to be tarnished what did she know about her son's alleged behavior and it comes back to you know culture protection the fact that it's them and us and that that's what will be very very damaging to to the royal family because you you know william and catherine are very modern new newly focused uh on the future royals that is without a doubt but what is this institution on the inside has it protected members of the royal family for too long from scrutiny.

39:30And I think that this whole issue could be very, very damaging. And it's certainly not going to be solved in the next few months. This could go on for many, many years. So the final thing I want to talk to you about the book is obviously you also deal with the very kind of sad, but I guess also in some ways hopeful period in Kate's life when she obviously was diagnosed with cancer and had chemotherapy. you know we hope that she's in a much better place now but obviously it was really difficult for a really long time for her one of the things that really touched me reading it was the quotes that you got about kate and william telling the children and it said you know that everyone was crying basically which presumably means the kids too i mean it must have been such a difficult period for them well i mean you know watching the video when we all did of the princess of I was given that statement in Windsor.

40:20What struck me immediately and has never left me is when she spoke about contemplating, both her and William contemplating having to tell the children. I put myself, same age as both of them, put myself in their position. I thought what an extraordinary thing to have to even think about, let alone go ahead and do. And this is on the back of her being in hospital for her abdominal procedure there's some detail in the book about how they kept in contact they'd taken the decision not to bring the children in but they'd kept in contact over those couple of weeks with video calls but then obviously a few weeks later that incredibly shocking diagnosis and yet what came um from across from several sources is essentially Catherine was the stronger of the two in this situation she was the one who was uh very sort of adept at thinking okay this is the way we're going to do it we're going to decide how we're going to children we're going to definitely take a leave of absence of course that was for her but she knew that William would have to do that as well to be at home for the children and William was in a tailspin at the time it's described to me as he felt of being hit by a bus it was very disorientating you know his whole world was upended we just a few days before the king had spoken about his own cancer diagnosis and then his wife at the age of 42 had been dealt with diagnosis as well so there's so many things up in the air and yet Catherine was the the much more steady of the two and I think that speaks a lot about her character and we don't really see behind the scenes you know this sort of steely resolve the fact that she is um very um I say confident in her own skin and she doesn't really get the credit for that I think criticism about her role or whether she's very good at public speaking we all know that that's very hard at the best of times but there is an inner confidence I think that we don't see a lot of the time so Russell thank you so much for joining me and just a reminder that Russell's book William and Catherine is out in America with Pegasus Books on March the 10th and it's already out in Britain.

42:30So if you're there, do definitely pick up a copy and read all about it for yourselves.

42:42Hello, and welcome back to the show. Prince Harry obviously was in Jordan last week, and it was for the most part, I would say a really successful visit. But there was one bit right at the very, very end that did cause me some concern. And that was when Harry did the sit-down interview with Channel 4 News, and the very first thing that was said to him was basically, you've asked us not to ask you about your uncle, because you don't want to distract from the purpose of your visit to the Middle East. Now, I want to be as fair as possible to Harry here, but that framing has always sat really, really uncomfortably with me.

43:22It's one the monarchy has tried to use numerous times before. I think it's contributed to causing the monarchy a lot of the problems it's experiencing and that Charles and William have been trying to deal with, which is that nothing's a distraction. The Epstein files is not a distraction from anything. Harry and Meghan's purpose in visiting the Middle East was really, really important. They spoke to a teenage girl called Maria who had lost a number of family members. She was a Burns victim from Gaza, you know, her family had been killed by Israel. Really, really horrific story. And I'm genuinely really, really pleased and grateful that somebody is trying to shine a spotlight on the horrific experiences, not just in Gaza.

44:05Actually, they also met Syrian refugees too. So, you know, the victims are both war zones. So that's really, really important. But the Epstein scandal is not a distraction, right? Andrew being arrested on suspicion of having committed a criminal offence of misconduct in a public office is not a distraction. It is an incredibly important and incredibly serious issue, which strikes to the very heart of British democracy. Because the question that underpins this whole issue is, is it possible for a royal family member to be prosecuted for committing a crime? Or will the establishment simply rally around that royal family member and protect them in order to preserve the reputation of the monarchy.

44:52And that strikes to the very heart of British democracy in the 21st century. And no matter how important Gaza and Syria are, which, by the way, is extremely, extremely important, you know, Britain didn't, wasn't part of the conflict in Gaza, we didn't cause it. and Harry is a British royal family member, it's very good that he wants to shine a spotlight on a really important issue that the media's attention has strayed away from, but it doesn't mean that other issues aren't important too. And this particular interview of Channel 4 News went out on the second day, the very end of the second day of a two-day talk.

45:33And so that meant that they'd already had a big round of coverage from the first day and also during the second day. So, you know, we live in an online world now. We live in a digital world. A lot of what people consume is digital media. It's as it happens. It's not, you know, the days when you get to the, you know, you hear absolutely nothing until you get to the end of the day and you watch the 10 o 'clock news and you hear a little bit and then you wake up the next morning and buy your daily newspaper. But those days are over. Sales figures for print newspapers are cratering. And even the 10 o 'clock news is way less important than it used to be.

46:08Channel 4 News runs at 7pm, so the 6 o 'clock early evening news had already happened by the time this interview aired. So the actual impact of Harry talking about Andrew, had he chosen to answer questions on the coverage of the tour, would have been significantly diminished by the fact that most of that coverage had already happened. but there is more to talk about here than just that because it's not actually just about this tour of the Middle East which you know it happened last week now so it probably feels like it was ancient history but there's absolutely no reason why Harry can't come off the fence and give some kind of a statement now there's no reason why he could not have come off the fence and given a statement at the time that Andrew was arrested after King Charles had released his so if Charles had not said anything yet, then sure, absolutely, it would have been viewed as a swipe at the monarchy for Harry to break his silence before the king did.

47:00It 100 % would have done and he would have had a bucket of grief for it from the media. And, you know, arguably some might say he should be more courageous and not care about that. But I have a lot of sympathy for that concern because, you know, Harry is pilloried all the time. But the king has issued a statement and that gives Harry a basis to say, well, I'm not trying to make Charles's problems worse by making my own statements. He could, in fact, echo the statement that Charles has already made. In other words, he could lend his support to the high-risk strategy that Charles has adopted. I mean, arguably high-risk.

47:39I actually think Charles cooperating with the police is extremely important, and Harry's standing up and saying, it's the right thing for my father to cooperate with the police investigation and Andrew's behaviour has to be fully investigated is not, in my view, in any way controversial. But obviously, when we report these issues, you know, I go out and I speak to my contacts and I speak to who I can to find out all the different perspectives. And so I spoke to a source close to Harry who told me this. The Duke has said everything he needed to say some time ago. That's a reference to Harry's book Spare, which I'm about to get into.

48:14what matters now is truth accountability and justice for the victim so this is basically saying harry actually did mention andrew in his memoir and said everything he needed to say at that time there is no need for him to say more now so i want to fully unpack that and talk about exactly what harry did say in spare and you know i am a big believer in fairness at newsweek we are big believers in being fair to people and so credit where it's due at the point that harry put this in his memoir, the other members of the royal family hadn't said anything. So he was the first out of the blocks, basically, in actually engaging head on with the allegations against Andrew.

48:53That time when Charles Haddon, William Haddon, they had all just kind of left Andrew to mark his own homework and try to deal with his own scandal as it was viewed. So this is what Harry said. So basically, Harry was talking about this. The actual comment he made is contextualised within the book in 2020. So Harry and Meghan have gone to North America. I think they're still physically in Canada at this point. And they are worried about whether their police protection team is going to be taken away from them. And then Harry believes that it won't because Andrews wasn't, he said. So this is what Harry actually writes in spare.

49:35Meg asked me one night, you don't think they'd ever pull our security, do you? Never. Not in this climate of hate and not after what happened to my mother. So that's Harry replying. Also, not in the wake of my uncle, Andrew. He was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of the sexual assault of a young woman, and no one had so much as suggested that he lose his security. Whatever grievance people had against us, sex crimes were not on the list. So, yes, Harry is talking about it, which arguably maybe you could say back in January 2023 was a brave thing to do because Charles hadn't gone on the record to say anything about Andrew in relation to Epstein and nor had William.

50:18However, the framing of these kinds of comments is so, so, so important. And the framing of what Harry put in spare was all very much about his own police protection. and crucially it lacked that fundamentally important detail that you know what do you think about the victims of Epstein that's what this is all about you know and he doesn't express sympathy for the victims which doesn't mean he didn't have sympathy for the victims but he doesn't say that in his book what he says in his book is you know I was caught up in this big drama about whether I was going to lose my police protection team obviously I don't want to trivialize that That's hugely important to Harry.

50:54But he thought, I can't possibly lose mine because Andrew didn't lose his. Right. And that's the framing. And Harry is not arguing for Andrew to lose his police protection. Right. That's the crucial bit of what's in spare. Harry is saying, I ought to keep my police protection team because Andrew kept his. He's not saying Andrew should not have police protection because he's been accused of being a criminal. He's been accused of rape, which he was. Andrew was accused by Virginia Jeffrey of rape via a New York civil lawsuit, which she filed in 2021. They settled in 2022. He denied liability. He's always denied her allegations.

51:34She said she was sex trafficked to him by Jeffrey Epstein when she was 17, which obviously he denies. But Harry didn't say, right, this guy needs to be investigated by the police and should never have had police protection at a point when he'd been accused of rape. You know, that's not what he said. What Harry said was, how could they possibly take my police team away when they didn't take away Andrews? And so, therefore, it's about updating the limited amount that Harry said, because it was limited to account for the new information. And, you know, Harry will have learned if he's been paying attention, maybe he hasn't read the stories.

52:12It's possible. But if he has, Harry will probably have learned things about Andrew that he may not have known before. For example, the fact that Andrew was very clearly asking Gillian Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein to procure women for him to go out to dinner with and that he called inappropriate friends. And the clear implication seems to be that he had a romantic interest in these women. And we know that Jeffrey Epstein was a sexual predator, a horrific sexual predator, who destroyed the lives of these women. Not only that, but there's actually now a really significant amount of information and material and evidence to back up Virginia's account.

52:54Now, Andrew obviously still denies it. If he were ever put on trial, we do not know what the outcome would be. it's possible the outcome would be that he'd be acquitted. We don't know. But Harry has not gone anywhere near actually giving a verdict. You're not a verdict, but giving an opinion, bad word, giving an opinion on whether he thinks that the police investigation is a good thing, a bad thing, whether he believes it should take place, whether the royal family are right to cooperate with it and support it. Not to mention, he's never commented on the allegations that the police are actually currently investigating, which relate to misconduct in a public office, which is about Andrew potentially or having been accused of sharing confidential government documents with Epstein.

53:40There's some suggestions there may be a national security dimension to that, which raises questions about the relationship between royal family members and the military, which is a subject of massive concern to Harry, because Harry's a massive, massive, massive part of Harry's identity as a human being, his relationship with the British public originally was his military service. And you have Andrew potentially having been accused of exploiting his capacity to get access to confidential government documents about investment opportunities in post-war Afghanistan, the war that Harry fought in on the front line, you know, and leaked those to Epstein.

54:22And we don't know what Andrew says about that. He might well deny it. He's certainly also always denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. But, you know, there may be stuff here that actually has huge relevance to Harry and like this huge part of his life and his relationship with the military. So, you know, there's definitely potential for Harry to say more. I cannot get my head around the idea that he has said everything he needs to say. Because, for example, let's say the British government were to come off the back of the end of this investigation and think, well, you know, Andrew should not have had access to those documents.

54:58We've got to rewrite the relationship between royal family members and the military. Then surely Harry would have some feelings about that. And maybe he doesn't want to preempt this whole process, in which case that would be a better framing. But also there is ample opportunity for Harry here to say whether he supports this action by A, the police, and B, Charles in saying he backs the police investigation. And it's just, it's really interesting. You know, Harry does say this about Andrew. That's true. But there are loads of references to Sarah Ferguson in the book. You know, Fergie taught Meghan how to curtsy.

55:39Harry and Meghan met the Queen sorry rather Meghan met the Queen for the first time Harry took Meghan to meet the Queen for the first time at Andrew's house like Fergie taught Meghan to curtsy and they then went in together and Harry goes into all the detail you know Meghan mistook Andrew for being the Queen's you know aide her assistant her PA maybe and then like Meghan did Harry says did this perfect curtsy you know the curtsy that Meghan recreated on Netflix and got a bucket load of flack for happened in front of Andrew. Andrew is a major piece of the narrative around this moment that contributed to the public changing their opinion on Megan.

56:22Obviously, many moments have, but it's a big moment, and it happened at Andrew's house. And Fergie is not criticised in the book, despite the fact that we now know way more about just how much Fergie knew about Epstein and his relationship with Andrew, that she was going to Epstein with a begging bowl asking for money, that she was saying crazy things to him like, you know, marry me, and that she introduced her, she took her daughters, Harry and William's cousins, to meet Epstein when they were, you know, kind of late teens, early 20s. That Fergie, you know, issued this groveling apology in early 2011 for having taken Epstein's money and then just turned around shortly afterwards and apologized to him privately and said she had to say it and only said it to avoid losing her relationship with charities and her deal as a children's book author.

57:17So Fergie has gone through this, since Harry's book came out, has gone through this incredible fall from grace. You know, really recently, as little as, you know, a year ago, Fergie was still welcomed onto news programs in Britain. You know, she was doing the rounds in the morning news shows, publicizing books and giving interviews in which she was defending Andrew. And now no one even really knows where she is. The theory is she's hiding out in the Middle East to get away from the PR storm around this issue. And she's gone through a total transformation. And the heat is on Beatrice and Eugenie, you know, Harry's cousins, who are under a huge amount of pressure.

57:57Now, I've said before on this show that I actually think I am yet to see something that, for me, definitively pushes Beatrice and Eugenie over the line from having been caught up in the incredibly toxic world of their incredibly toxic parents to having actually done something bad themselves. I think there are some signs in the Epstein files, you know, as much as they are mentioned in the files, actually quite a lot. There are also some signs and some of those emails that Beatrice and Eugenie may actually have pushed back and like refused to give guided tours of the palace to Epstein's friends.

58:36It's not totally clear, but I have not actually yet seen something that for me shows that they were culpable or responsible for fueling this incredibly toxic relationship. But yeah, they were taken by their mum at a point when they were still university age kids to meet Epstein when he was still under house arrest for being a child abuser. so um you know so much has changed beyond what harry would have known um in january 2023 or alternatively if he did know all of this stuff already then he certainly should have told someone about it but i don't believe that i think you know harry will have learned stuff himself about these members of his family that he didn't know and that means there is ample grounds for him to say something to indicate what he thinks about the fact, you know, Andrew's been, I think partly what has really riled and antagonized, um, you know, some of the, the kind of Sussex, the wider Sussex milieu is the idea that Harry gets compared to Andrew, which arguably, you know, the passages in spare make that comparison, um, in view through the prism of police protection.

59:51But I think, you know, it's not a fair comparison. Absolutely nothing Harry and Meghan have done is anywhere near as bad as what Andrew's accused of. And even if, you know, the most serious things Andrew is accused of, you know, don't stick in court, for example, if he is ever charged or even if he's never charged. Right. Even the amount that we have in black and white in those emails about his willingness to be friends of Jeffrey Epstein. You know what we have in black and white is enough. to make Andrew considerably worse than Harry and Meghan, even at the absolute maximum of the allegations against Harry and Meghan.

1:00:28And so I have some sympathy with the frustration that, you know, that the kind of the Sussex milieu experiences. Needless to say, though, like the framing is so important and the framing in Harry's book actually is all wrong as a comment on the Epstein scandal, which it's not, you know, fundamentally it's a comment on Harry's security situation. And if those quotes in spare express sympathy for anyone, they express, Harry is expressing effectively sympathy for himself, having had his police team taken away. So look, all Harry would need to do either now or like, actually it would have been the perfect moment in my view, because he'd been asked about it by a journalist.

1:01:14So it would have been the perfect moment out in Jordan to just say, look, look, Those women who were victims of Jeffrey Epstein had their lives destroyed. They went through horrific experiences. And the proof of that is writ large on the fact that many of them are not alive today. Right. I've never in my life written a story about a written story covered a subject where so many people have wound up taking their own lives. And like that speaks such loud volumes about what these women went through. And all Harry has to say is express profound sympathy for those women, say that he echoes his father's statement that the police need to look into this and investigate it and find out where the evidence takes them on Andrew.

1:02:06And that it's the right thing for the palace to cooperate with that investigation. And I cannot for the life of me understand why that would be so hard. And I think where a lot of people who follow the royals and are interested in the royals will really struggle here is that they don't see what is in any way even remotely difficult or hard or challenging about releasing a statement. I mean, to an ordinary bystander or spectator on royal life, all a person has to do, all Harry has to do is open his phone. He doesn't even need to go to his laptop. Open his phone and write an email to a spokesperson saying, please, can you release this to the media?

1:02:52And then type out, my father did the right thing by supporting the police investigation. The allegations against Andrew are profoundly concerning. I want to know the truth and we'll keep a close eye on where this all goes. My sympathies, of course, are with the victims and I support the decisive action my father has taken. And that takes minutes and then he hits send and then it happens. So why is it, where does the view come from that there's no need to say more when saying more is not particularly taxing or difficult and i think that's where audiences are going to struggle to understand the sussex position is that they don't have this sense that releasing a new statement is in any way arduous difficult or challenging and it's going to be very difficult for them to get to the point of understanding that so all they're left with is harry's words and spare and it's just so striking when you read them in full the one word basically the sussex position currently is or at least say the pro Sussex position is resting very heavily on one word, which is the word shameful.

1:04:05And this is, I'm going to read you again. So the suggestion is that Andrew was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of the sexual assault of a young woman. Now, Harry doesn't say whether Andrew was guilty or not for totally understandable reasons. How is he supposed to know? Number one, it's potentially defamatory when he hasn't been through a court of law number two but it says that the scandal is shameful and that there is an accusation but that's not the same as actually saying whether or not something bad has happened here because he can't at that stage in january 2023 and it's not this is not a criticism of what harry said then like the framing should have been different.

1:04:49He should have taken a beat in this conversation about his security to express sympathy for Epstein's victims and to say that, you know, that should be looked into. But he can't say that Andrew's guilty. And so, you know, there is more that can be said now. Like there's so much more that can be said now. He still can't say whether Andrew's guilty, but now that the police are investigating it, he can say that he supports that investigation. and so there is ample reason for him and you know he's not injured anymore and he's not shining a spotlight on refugees anymore and there is no particular reason why he can't do it today or tomorrow or next week um so there you go that is my view on it and i understand the frustration but that doesn't mean the frustration is justified and on that note i'm going to take a quick break but just a reminder to rate and review the royal report on apple podcasts or spotify or wherever you get your favourite shows.

1:05:45And of course, we're now on YouTube. So if you're watching there, don't forget to like and subscribe. And when I'm back, Meghan Markle really has reached the time, I think, to take her as ever brand global.

1:06:06Hello, and welcome back to the show. Now, I've been getting deja vu this week going through Megan Markle's website numbers, which we can do through a piece of software called SimilarWeb, which can't tell you sales data, which is frustrating because that's obviously what we'd love to know with as ever is how much is she actually selling and how much is she actually making. But what SimilarWeb can do is it can tell us how much traffic, how much footfall, digital footfall there is on Megan's website. And it can tell us some information about where that footfall is coming from, including geographical region and also some other things like where it's being referred from.

1:06:44Are people just going straight there or are they coming from social media, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it's the best barometer we have for giving hard numbers to this question. And actually, there are some positive signs for Megan. She's still not reached the kind of height of where, you know, back when she was doing her first product launches and stuff was selling out instantly. She's getting huge numbers of people on her website. There was in the week of her second batch release of product, she got half a million people on her website that week. But obviously, frustratingly for Megan, those half a million people did not manage to buy or manage to buy something because she sold out in minutes.

1:07:27So she didn't have enough supply to meet the level of demand that existed then. And demand has not returned to those sky high levels. But she has had a significant amount of people visiting her website and it's been going slowly up in the months since she has had reliable stock. So since the end of summer last year, she has had reliable stock in her store. And since October to January, she grew footfall on her website by 30%, which is not bad. And the actual hard numbers there, I will read out to you. so the um back in october it was 196 000 people so just a shade under 200 000 and in january it was 268 000 with like broadly steady growth in between i think november was maybe slightly higher than um december because november obviously there's a big kind of boom in sales around the kind of black friday discount period and the general holiday period so So, you know, it's promising.

1:08:28And I think particularly the fact that there wasn't a big drop-off in January is probably going to be reassuring to her because she put, you know, she discounted products in November, but actually she got more people on the site in January. But there is a but. And the but here is that only a third of those visitors to as ever in January were from the United States. So that's, you know, about 33%. and Megan does not actually currently ship internationally, which means that, again, many of those customers may well have left empty-handed. And the crazy thing about it is that Megan has said that she wants to take the brand global.

1:09:08So she has said she wants to be able to target those markets all over the world. And she said this actually now really quite a long time ago, back in June. So we're not a year on from there yet. What are we? We're February, so March, April, May, June. So yeah, we're about four months away from being here. So that's eight months. In the intervening eight months, she has not actually succeeded in taking the brand global. Now we don't know exactly why that is, but it is giving me deja vu from the launch of American Riviera Orchard. She launched American Riviera Orchard really early back in like kind of spring 2024.

1:09:45I think it was like March, April, May, sometime like that when she sent all of these, jam pots to her celebrity friends so that they could post them on Instagram. It caused a huge amount of excitement and interest and energy around this idea. But then she just wasn't ready to launch it for months and months and months and months. And then it kind of felt like she rushed it out even once it was ready, which was in 2025, in order to tie it to the deadline for the end of her Netflix deal. So the Netflix deal ended in 2025. Obviously, she wanted to get the Netflix show out by that time, but the Netflix show was actually ready before As Ever was kind of fully formed, which meant that none of the products from As Ever were in the Netflix show.

1:10:26And it's like the whole thing was just basically kind of forced into these timeframes and deadlines that didn't actually, you know, it didn't hit the deadline. Megan needed really to have the produce ready before filming started on the Netflix show so that the products themselves that were going to be on sale in the shop could be in the Netflix series. Bearing in mind, she filmed two seasons back to back and a Christmas special all before the shop was ready. And then by the time the shop was ready, it still didn't have enough stock to meet the sky high demand at the point that everything launched.

1:11:01And so it just, the timings all went wrong. And so then having come straight off the back of that experience, June comes along And she's already announcing she's going global when she's clearly not ready to go global. And so she went, she did this on the Aspire with Emma Greed podcast in June of 2025. And she said, compliance is different globally when we get into that market, which we will. And Emma Greed said, you're going global. And Megan said, how could we not? And there was this big thing on social media at the time, you know, saying Megan's going global, you know, among her fans saying she's going global, it's going to be a big thing.

1:11:35And clearly she needs to because 70 % or 66 % of her website traffic is not actually from Americans. And so those are all people who probably no doubt want to buy her stock. And maybe they've got an address they can order it to in America or something. But clearly a lot of them are going to have to leave empty handed. And we know she does need to sell a lot of stock because she has a lot of stock. And I'm willing to believe that as ever is more successful than her detractors and critics and haters say it is. So I did the maths on her stock tallies as they existed in January and she had$21.8 million worth of stock at that point in time, which is a huge number.

1:12:20And flower sprinkles alone, she had$1.2 million worth of edible flower sprinkles, which is 80 ,000 tubs. Now bearing in mind that edible flower sprinkles are not actually a fundamentally crucial, necessary ingredient in any particular dish. They're like a garnish that you just throw on as a luxury, like absolute classic luxury good. That is a lot of money's worth of flower sprinkles. So basically, look, she's had a long time to make this happen. And in fact, one of her products, this leather bookmark that she's selling is actually made in Britain, but you can't buy it from Megan if you live in Britain, even though it's made in Britain and shipped to America to be sold in America.

1:13:05So I don't totally understand what is holding her back from just having a UK division, you know, maybe a UK factory. Maybe that's it. Maybe she just needs to find someone in Britain who will make her jam. Like maybe that's what it comes down to. But I do kind of think that she needs to find that and somebody in Australia and somebody in these other countries around the world. And part of the reason I say that actually there was, you know, this is something I didn't put this into the story that I wrote for Newsweek because I thought it was too small a change to make a big thing out of, but it's something that we'll need to keep an eye on is that her US audience actually was very slightly down in January month on month from the previous, from December.

1:13:46And so she's getting, you know, you've got to remember that even though a lot of people in Britain hate Meghan. And it's true. A lot of people in Britain hate Meghan, but even the people who hate her actually do still care. And this is the crazy thing is that, you know, those royalist countries, or even if you don't think they're royalist anymore, which they might not be, but those countries for whom monarchy is directly relevant to their lives. So Britain, Australia counts Charles as King, Canada counts Charles as King, New Zealand, Jamaica, you know, countries around the world that count the British monarch as king, you know, they do have a reason to care about Meghan and Harry still.

1:14:27I mean, this is one of the things I think that Harry is realizing when he comes back to Britain is that no matter how bad their approval ratings are, people will still be interested in what they're doing here. And so that is why when Harry visited Britain in September, it actually went really well. And so it's also why I think Meghan needs to just get a move on. And, you know, I've never set up a business. I'm not a businessman. Like, I don't know the challenges that come with trying to start a company, which I'm sure are huge and trying to rapidly scale a company. I'm sure they're massive. I'm sure it's a total nightmare.

1:15:02And she's been putting her hair out over it and all of those things. And she's under pressure to do good stuff for charity at the same time. But needless to say, if you're going to tell people in June 2025 that you're going global, you should only really be doing that if you're ready to go global. And if the numbers on your website are telling you that people around the world are expecting that to have happened because they're going on to your website in their thousands to try in their tens of thousands, um, to try and buy stuff, you know, like over a hundred thousand, like it's the lion's share.

1:15:36It's, it's the substantial majority of people on that website are from around the world. And they clearly think that there's a chance they'll be able to buy this produce. So I think she needs to make it happen. And not least of all, she has a small market in reality because of the price of her products, some of which now she's selling these packages where you don't just go and buy one jar of jam. You buy maybe a couple of boxes of tea, a candle, a jar of honey, and a bookmark. And that costs you something like over$100. That That costs you something like$130,$170 or something like that. You know, huge amounts of money for a very small number of items.

1:16:14And so it's only a limited number of people who can afford those prices. So the bigger you make your hypothetical pool of customers, the more people there are with the resources to actually spend those sky high amounts. In the middle of a cost of living crisis as well. And also oil prices are going up now, aren't they? Because of the war on Iran. So that has the potential to have an inflationary effect on all supply chains, because that's what oil prices do. Everybody uses gasoline, petrol to ship their stuff everywhere. And so when oil prices go up, it can cause inflation across everywhere. You know, a lot of people have been saying, Megan's most kind of committed critics have been saying, as ever as a waste of time, it's all a failure.

1:17:05They like to call it was never and all of these things. And I've never quite subscribed to that perspective on it. I think there is potential here for Megan to find a market and you don't need to be like dizzyingly popular among the whole population in order to sell products to people. but you do need to be agile and you need to be able to react to changes in the market and you need to be able to move with the times and you need to be able to chase down your customers because it is a tough world that we live in and it could well get tougher and you know she already is suffering from the fact that she wasn't able to meet demand at the point that demand was sky high and so now she's having to kind of try to build that kind of audience um at a point where she is such a shame for her that she missed that massive hit at the beginning but look i'm not going to bet against as ever being a success i still think it could be a success i just feel like maybe she needs to learn the lesson that she missed first time around and that's it for this episode of the royal report be sure to join me every show when i visit the latest royal headlines embark on some Royal deep dives and riff on all things Royal.

1:18:15Until next time, I'm Jack Royston. Thanks for listening and a curtsy to you all.

1:18:23Russell Myers:The Royal Report with Jack Royston is a member of The Trust Project.