LONDON – Prince Harry and his wife Meghan chose Valentine’s Day to announce that they were expecting their second child, confirming the happy news with a dreamy black-and-white photo of themselves posing under a tree – a Harry barefoot stroking Meghan’s hair, her belly is only slightly smaller than her smile.
Within a day, the British tabloids began to complain. It was an unworthy display for a prince who is still sixth in line for the throne, they said. A podiatrist consulted by the Daily Mail went so far as to say that Harry’s feet looked slightly deformed, with bunions that could have been the result of his rigorous military training.
While Harry and Meghan mark the first anniversary of their bitter breakup with the British royal family, it is clear that the wounds have not yet healed – between them and the sensationalist press or even, according to people linked to Buckingham Palace, between them and members of the House of Windsor.
Harry will soon be stripped of his honorary military commands and patronage appointments, the result of a 12-month review of the deal that codified the couple’s removal from office as full-time royalty. Meghan will also miss her nominations, which include patron of the National Theater.
None of this is surprising to people who follow the royal family. Queen Elizabeth II made it clear that she would not tolerate a partial agreement with the couple, who started a new and profitable life in California with podcasts and programming deals. But it is still painful for Harry, who served as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan and reveres his military ties, according to a palace official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss palace matters.
“Anyone with common sense knew this was inevitable,” said Valentine Low, a real correspondent for the London Times. “They made these commercial deals with Netflix and Spotify. But this confirms the division’s permanence. “
Under the terms of the termination agreement, signed in January 2020 at the Queen’s Sandringham field residence, the couple agreed to give up the titles of Her Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness. They also removed the royal from their charitable foundation and social media accounts. But they continue to be known as Duke and Duchess of Sussex, titles Elizabeth has given them.
As if to reinforce their new independence, the couple agreed to a prime-time interview with Oprah Winfrey, which will air in the United States on March 7. Palace officials are preparing for embarrassing revelations about how Meghan, 39, a former American actress felt isolated and undesirable after her fairytale wedding to Harry at Windsor Castle in 2018.
The revealing interviews tend to be a train wreck for the royal family, returning to Prince Charles’s confession in 1994 that he had been unfaithful to Princess Diana, Harry’s mother. A year later, Diana said to an interviewer, “There were three of us at this wedding.” In 2019, Prince Andrew’s clumsy defense of his friendship with the convicted sexual predator, Jeffrey Epstein, accelerated his ban on public life.
Mrs. Winfrey is friends with Harry and Meghan, so her questions are unlikely to be as investigative as those asked to Andrew by BBC journalist Emily Maitlis. Still, the interviewer’s choice, arguably the most famous American celebrity for his big post-real revelation, left his teeth on the alert in the London media establishment.
The timing may also be strange after news that Prince Philip, the queen’s 99-year-old husband, was admitted to a London hospital on Tuesday with an unspecified illness. Buckingham Palace said Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, did not have the coronavirus and that he was hospitalized as a precaution. He and the queen received their first doses of the coronavirus vaccine in January.
It also didn’t help that CBS announced the interview a few days after the duchess won a legal victory in a privacy case against Mail on Sunday. A Supreme Court judge ruled that the tabloid illegally published a letter that Meghan sent to his distant father, Thomas Markle. The decision was a victory over those who “create their business model to profit from people’s pain,” she said in a statement.
“They don’t have a big reserve of affection among the tabloids because they basically declared war on them,” said Low of The Times. “There is also a generational thing that happens.”
Younger people, who get news on social media, tend to be more enthusiastic about the couple than older people who read the tabloids, he said. For many, Meghan’s biracial background and acting career gave a breath of fresh air to a moldy institution. But for some older, more traditional Britons, the couple’s abrupt departure for California was a repudiation of the queen herself.
British media were genuinely excited about Meghan’s pregnancy, mainly because she had suffered a painful miscarriage last July, an experience she wrote in strict terms in The New York Times last November. But the ingenious way in which this happier news was announced has resulted in criticism that the couple abhor intrusive press coverage, unless it is on their own terms.
To take the picture under the tree, they hired a Nigeria-born British photographer, Misan Harriman, who photographed protests from the Black Lives Matter and also a British Vogue cover. He is a friend of the couple.
“They left Britain apparently to escape relentless publicity,” said Penny Junor, a real biographer. “They couldn’t stand the lack of privacy; yet, at each step, they seem to have sought publicity for themselves. “
Real observers say the tensions between the couple’s old and new lives were inevitable – and were actually masked by the pandemic. The travel restrictions saved Harry any doubt as to why he did not attend the wedding of his cousin, Princess Beatriz, André’s daughter, last July.
But after taking shelter in its castles and palaces for the past 11 months, the royal family is transforming itself in the summer for a series of celebrations that will be difficult even for a prodigal prince to miss: the queen’s 95th birthday and Prince Philip’s 100th birthday , both celebrated in June; and the installation of a statue of Princess Diana at Kensington Palace on July 1, which would have been her 60th birthday.
Even before the news of Meghan’s pregnancy, the couple’s travel plans for the summer were uncertain. Several newspapers reported that Harry could go to Britain, but the Duchess would stay at home to look after her son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.
“If they came back and took beautiful pictures for the press with their babies, I think the press could be very supportive,” said Junor. “Fundamentally, he was very much loved. But there are many people who think she has led him astray. “