Royal Mess: What’s Going to Happen With the Truth-bombs?

The On-Going Saga of Queen Elizabeth's Funeral

A few years ago, I developed an unusual interest in the British Royal Family. From time to time, I do a brain-dump and write blog posts about them. I’ve written several posts about them this week. Given the global interest in the Queen, I am republishing the last four installments in this saga. For the whole series of blog posts about the Royal Family, tag: royal mess. To start from the beginning, start here.

This essay was originally published on my blog on September 14th.

The Sussex Squad, as they call themselves on social media, are the ride-or-die fans of Meghan Markle. They, along with the equally crazed fans of Will and Kate, are worth a blog post of their own, but today I’m just going to focus on one of their big claims. They say that the royal family, the British journalists, and the entire country of Britain hate Meghan because she’s black. However, all the evidence shows that Meghan and Harry’s truth bombs imploded in their faces.

When Meghan and Harry got married in May 2018, they were extremely popular in Britain and the world. Worldwide, 1.9 billion people watched their wedding. In the US,. 29.2 million people watched their wedding, compared to 22.8 million for Will and Kate. In Britain, their wedding wasn’t watched as much as other royal weddings, but it still had 11.5 million viewers. I watched the wedding, which was remarkable, because I had exactly zero interest in the royal family at that time.

Then Megexit happened. Meghan and Harry wanted to be free and fly away to develop a $ brand as world-wide doers of good and compassion. And they also wanted to stay in the royal castles and strut around in their silly uniforms and crazy hats. They spent months hatching a plan, along with Meghan’s LA PR team that she never dismissed. Their plan to combine royal duties with their own business dealings was so well thought out that someone on their team even wrote their plan out on the website. All this done before consulting the Queen.

Their plans are still on their old website, which strangely enough, was never deleted. It’s a sad monument to a plan gone awry. A dead dream.

The Queen, Charles, and William were blindsided by these plans, which were leaked to the press. A bunch of hurried last minute meetings happened, where the Queen basically said no. She didn’t want people using the royal name to create their own brand, which would be monetized for personal profit. Their plans to be part-time royals were dismissed. Harry lost his shiny uniform, patronages, and polo ponies. And they raced off in a plane of shame to Canada.

Harry and Meghan were pissed, so they called up Oprah, who had been pestering them for an interview since she met them at their wedding. This takes us March 2021, and by that time, my admittedly bizarre interest in the royal family was in full bloom. I began blogging about it then.

Meghan said that UK press portrayed her as a bad guy. The massive staff that supports the royal family — called “the firm” by Princess Di — didn’t protect her and, in fact, leaked info to the press. All the pressure from the press made her depressed, so she wanted to kill herself, but she claimed that the firm wouldn’t allow her to get medical care. She was pissed that she and Harry weren’t allowed to be half in/half out royals.

In other words, she first paints the bad guys as the press and the “firm.” She mentions that someone in the family made a comment about Archie’s skin tone, but it was a side point. Later, she said that she was surprised that the headlines were about race, because she was, at first, most angry about other stuff.

In that 85-minute “bombshell” interview, Meghan and Harry gave many more “truth bombs” — the wikipedia page had a nice summary. Some of their claims were later proven to be untrue; she claimed they were three days before their televised wedding. Yeah, they didn’t happen. Their claims, regardless of their veracity, were sensational and portrayed the royals, who like to keep a very firm line between their public and private lives, in a negative light.

It was big news and very lucrative. Oprah got $9 million in licensing fees. Harry and Meghan had already deals with Netflix and Spotify, but other deals were in the works. In July, he signed a $20 million deal with Random Houseto produce more truth bombs. But exposing the family’s dirty linens had a major downside, too.

Until Megexit and Oprah, Meghan and Harry were very popular in Britain. Prince Harry used to enjoy sky-high popularity ratings in Britain, with up to 81 percent of the country viewing him positively at the time of his wedding in May 2018, according to YouGov. She too was liked by 55 percent of the British public in October 2019. Now, only 24 percent of Brits like Harry and 25 percent like Meghan. Among the royals, only Prince Andrew is less popular than Meghan among adult Brits.

The drop in their popularity in Britain after their wedding shows a pretty strong correlation to their exit and Oprah. In other words, race wasn’t the big issue as the Sussex Squad likes to make out.

So, are truth bombs a good move? Do they bring wealth and independence for the couple? What should they do about their podcasts and memoirs that are reportedly full of more unsavory info about their relatives.

Meghan’s released three podcasts this month, and was all set to release another seven. They were paused. Harry’s memoir was supposed to be released later this year or early next year. I haven’t heard much about the reality show that their doing with Netflix, but they are certainly truth-bombs in there, too, because that’s all that poor Harry and Meghan have to sell. Nobody is interested in their rescue chickens.

In short, there are at least $100 million dollars worth of truth-bombs just sitting on a shelf. Random House, Netflix, and Spotify. While truth bombs may not have made Harry and Meghan very well-liked, people still want to read them. Villains are more interesting than heroes, after all. With the unbelievable world-wide interest in the monarchy at the moment — 1 million people are expected in London for her funeral — their truth bombs could be worth billions. And at the same time, these rude comments about their family — at this point, the entire world considers them family, too — will make them hated beyond belief.

With all this pro-crown sentiment in the air, Oprah is currently trying to distance herself from her “bombshell” interview, while behind the scenessaying something different. The rumor mill has conflictual info about the status of their projects: Some say Harry is reportedly tried to push up the date of his memoir; others say there will be a delay. Some say Meghan is desperate to re-record her Spotify podcasts. It’s unclear how much scorched earth is in his Harry’s memoir. His ghostwriter may have jumped out of the project, but who really knows.

More to come…

Disclaimer: Entertainment only.