Harry & Meghan 17: St Meghan's Hagiography

[treehugger]

@DalmatianCat thank you for the correction.  I totally messed up the order in my head. There would never have been a Queen Anne. 

[Four is Enough]

There would never be a Queen Anne, but if there was, I'm sure she would be much like her mother. Actually, I think Charles will be much like his mother as well.  I'm interested to see how he fares as monarch with the lessening of the size of the monarchy and the BRF.

[Jackie3]

Speaking of Anne, I love how the papers are praising her for doing an ordinary thing--carrying her bags, like it's something remarkable. (They've hidden the photo where she passes them to an aide before she finishes descending the stairs off the plane.)

 

On 1/12/2024 at 7:21 AM, treehugger said:

Can you imagine if we had Queen Anne instead of King Charles? 

Politically, I don't think the country would change much. They really are figureheads.

It wouldn't solve the cost of living crisis that's going on in the UK, for example. Unless she decided to decline the Sovereign Grant, or something. I"m sure 86 million pounds flowing into the economy would help! Other than that, things that really matter, like NHS funding or the homeless crisis, would remain the same.

[Manda]

On 12/31/2023 at 9:40 AM, Jackie3 said:

The royalties from Spare should more than make up for that.  How many authors dream of setting world sales records?

There are no royalties. The book did not make the advance.  That isn't Harry's fault.  Random House over estimated sales.

[Jackie3]

3 hours ago, Manda said:

There are no royalties. The book did not make the advance.  That isn't Harry's fault.  Random House over estimated sales.

The  20 million dollar advance is safe in Harry's pocket. That money is his, no matter what.

The book set a Guinness Book of World Records for sales. 

Royalties can come in for years. People still earn royalties for books they wrote in the 70's. And Harry's book continues to sell!

The book deal itself was for four books--so plenty of opportunity for the publisher to make its money back. It's nice of you to be concerned about the publisher's finances. But its a big corporation, and should do fine.

 

Edited January 15 by Jackie3

[nokidsmom]

On 1/8/2024 at 8:34 AM, prayawaythefundie said:

I‘ve come to believe that Harry wanted out long before he met Meghan and I think they planned their exit prior to their wedding but it didn‘t go as they expected and that‘s when all the drama unfolded. Harry hadn‘t planned to speak to Oprah or publish Spare. It just was so much harder to leave than he had expected and his reaction was spite.

When H&M announced their exit from the RF, I remembered Harry in an interview talking about forging a different life away from royalty.   I don't remember specifically what he said but it was along the lines he wanted something different from the standard royal life routine.   Meghan was not even in the picture yet, IIRC it was a least a couple of years before.

I am guessing that Harry, either consciously or unconsciously, chose a woman who was agreeable to "not being a royal" and would not be surprising that they discussed such exit plans before their wedding.  

What has surprised me is how the many ways it's all gone wrong.    I get that initially there might have been some hiccups in their transition but never thought they would be where they are now. 

[viii]

It would be really interesting to see where they would be now if Covid had never happened. The entire world shutting down derailed a lot of their plans, I think. 

[Jackie3]

2 hours ago, nokidsmom said:

What has surprised me is how the many ways it's all gone wrong.    I get that initially there might have been some hiccups in their transition but never thought they would be where they are now. 

I don't get why people say that. A lot of folks would love their life. Gorgeous mansion in a sunny coastal climate. Plenty of money (even enough to buy awards, lol). Cool celebrity friends. Adorable children. Private jets to concerts. VIP boxes.  Charming small town but close to a big city. Enough staff to make life pleasant (I doubt they clean their own toilets or empty their own dishwasher). Fun work like podcasting. No 9 to 5. Chickens, even.

Edited January 17 by Jackie3

[louisa05]

7 hours ago, viii said:

It would be really interesting to see where they would be now if Covid had never happened. The entire world shutting down derailed a lot of their plans, I think. 

I don't think Covid affected their work ethic or talent/skills. Those things were apparently already lacking. 

[viii]

I didn’t list any of those things, did I? I said their plans. 

[Jackie3]

3 hours ago, viii said:

I didn’t list any of those things, did I? I said their plans. 

Some people will take a random statement and turn it into an opportunity to trash the Sussexes. That’s what happened here.

[just_ordinary]

I do think they wanted to do public speaking and probably show up in person to charity events/work/rallies….

So yes, COVID very probably interfere a lot with HOW they wanted to build their new image. 

But after 4 years I am seriously questioning what they actually would have had to say and contribute. Remember how they wanted to be a beacon around true and scientific information about COVID and vaccinations? Never came into being. The strange cause hopping, which has stopped. For the longest time they made basically being poor ex-Royal their big profile. Add Diana, which H brings into most of his speeches. A production company that only managed to produce 1 podcast series and one or two documentaries about an already well known charity and a failed project which actually sounded like a good idea initially. Yes, COVID made things harder, but so many people found ways to still bring people together, to support, to create. They could have produced minority podcasters that helped their communities with information and uplifting, connecting content. They could have used the time to reach out to minority screenwriters, actors, production crews and line up projects. As far as I am concerned they are not actually interested in supporting minority communities but rather want to show themselves and how supportive they are. 
 

Looking back I think maybe COVID was actually helping them. Because if you look how quickly they have sunken into the realm of mocked irrelevance, best known for twisting the truth and accepting awards, this would probably have happened a lot sooner. 

[DalmatianCat]

17 hours ago, nokidsmom said:

 

What has surprised me is how the many ways it's all gone wrong.    I get that initially there might have been some hiccups in their transition but never thought they would be where they are now. 

I think Harry is surprised, too, to be honest. Even when he wanted out of the royal family, I think he thought he’d still spend at least half his time in England and his children would grow up being at least accustomed to British culture. Now, he seems to be aware that he’s dug himself into a hole with the whole “I can’t bring my family here without security” thing and doesn’t quite know how to backtrack, so it’s full steam ahead. I don’t think he realized how much damage control the palace did for him until he was responsible for coming up with his own.

[Jackie3]

3 hours ago, DalmatianCat said:

I think Harry is surprised, too, to be honest. Even when he wanted out of the royal family, I think he thought he’d still spend at least half his time in England and his children would grow up being at least accustomed to British culture. Now, he seems to be aware that he’s dug himself into a hole with the whole “I can’t bring my family here without security” thing and doesn’t quite know how to backtrack, so it’s full steam ahead. I don’t think he realized how much damage control the palace did for him until he was responsible for coming up with his own.

Maybe he loves his kids, sees the hate against them, and doesn't want to put them at risk.

[Father Son Holy Goat]

They really should be vocal about calling out Prince Andrew. Most people are opposed to sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, and trafficking and the ones who aren’t are NAMBLA types who they don’t really want as fans anyway. Since the BRF hasn’t called out Andrew and continues to be seen with him it plays into their whole the BRF is cold and calloused routine. They could donate money to trafficking prevention which would be much needed. 

[TN-peach]

Harry withdrew his libel case against the media regarding media right before the deadline for discovery.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12983337/Prince-Harry-withdraws-libel-case-against-Mail-Sunday-security-row.html

 

 

[Jackie3]

11 hours ago, Father Son Holy Goat said:

They really should be vocal about calling out Prince Andrew. Most people are opposed to sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, and trafficking and the ones who aren’t are NAMBLA types who they don’t really want as fans anyway. Since the BRF hasn’t called out Andrew and continues to be seen with him it plays into their whole the BRF is cold and calloused routine. They could donate money to trafficking prevention which would be much needed. 

Yes, they are making a mistake there. 

I'm astonished to learn that there are people who aren't against sexual abuse. Who support child sexual abuse. Or child trafficking. 

I can't believe the royals would be among this group. But there are so many people connected to the royals that assault teenage boys and girls (or even children.  Mountbatten. Jimmy Saville, Kevin Spacey. And there's Andrew himself.

Why else wouldn't they be trying to help a group of innocents that Andrew hurt? Even if they didn't care, it would be good optics. But they are silent.

[just_ordinary]

His lawyers probably told him him he wouldn’t win. This has nothing to do with if his position is the right one though. So cutting his losses is the sensible thing to do. I read somewhere that he will have to foot the bill of the other side which allegedly is around £250.000? That swallows up the 160.000 he won last time. Not sure I recall the sums correctly but it shows that suing is an expensive hobby. 
It’s going to be interesting if he wins against the Home Office. That’s a big fish and I am not sure his case holds up.

[Jackie3]

1 hour ago, just_ordinary said:

His lawyers probably told him him he wouldn’t win. This has nothing to do with if his position is the right one though. So cutting his losses is the sensible thing to do. I read somewhere that he will have to foot the bill of the other side which allegedly is around £250.000? That swallows up the 160.000 he won last time. Not sure I recall the sums correctly but it shows that suing is an expensive hobby. 
It’s going to be interesting if he wins against the Home Office. That’s a big fish and I am not sure his case holds up.

Yes, if the court rules he has to pay the opposing counsel's legal fees, he'll have to do so. 

He also won a huge award last night at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It's fun to see him and John Travolta joshing around. I didn't realize Travolta had lost all his hair!

[GreenBeans]

On 1/8/2024 at 8:25 PM, AmazonGrace said:

Well I think it could go either way... sometimes you like someone with a stable family because that's what you're missing... but other times you like someone whose extended family has just as many feuds and break-ups as yours, because that's what you're used to, and it's you and your partner against the world

And sometimes you just like someone and it has nothing to do with their family.  I mean, I really do like my in laws, but they weren’t the reason I chose my husband (actually, they had nothing to do with my decision).

[AmazonGrace]

A lot of people meet and commit to their partners first and meet the in-laws later and it's not a conscious factor.

But I think the birth families or people who raised us might still be relevant in an oblique way because it has influenced our values and what sort of family life and attachments we expect, dream of or are capable of, and it in turn influences what sort of people we are attracted to or who are attracted to us .

Edited January 22 by AmazonGrace

[noseybutt]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

A lot of people meet and commit to their partners first and meet the in-laws later and it's not a conscious factor.

But I think the birth families or people who raised us might still be relevant in an oblique way because it has influenced our values and what sort of family life and attachments we expect, dream of or are capable of, and it in turn influences what sort of people we are attracted to or who are attracted to us .

I found it very attractive watching how my dude treated his family of origin.

[tabitha2]

That’s what happened with the late  Queen and her Husband. Her parents gave him a picture and feeling  of close loving family life and activities he had never had before.  Seems to be a happy case history repeating itself. 

[treehugger]

I haven’t got a lot of good to say about my husband’s family, my husband just doesn’t say much.  But, he has never been rude or disrespectful to his parents.  He has set excellent boundaries and somehow has managed to maintain them, but he it’s always kind about it.  He helps them out when he can. He still call his parents for their birthdays. He visits them for important things.  And I respect the hell out of him for that.  
I can’t help but feel that I wouldn’t have been as attracted to my husband as a person if he had gone scorched earth with his family, even though it would have been warranted, because that kind of angry, volatile character would have made me feel uncomfortable.  How a person treats their family says volumes about their character. You don’t have to put up with crap to be a decent person. 

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

My personal opinion, which is based the snippets from their actual words and not all the gossip, is that they just "got" each other right away. Regardless of what happened later, Harry always needed a woman who could handle public pressure, was interested in charity, understood how to work a crowd, and some of those sorts of things. Meghan has said less about what motivated her, but she does/did seem smitten with him and marrying a prince and/or rich guy can make a lot of people swoony. But Meghan did have some sort of charity and public speaking motivation and platform before she ever met him. So she could easily have looked at that situation and say here's a guy who's pretty fun to be around, he's rich, he's into charity stuff, and being with him allows me to do more of the public speaking and charity work or at least get a larger audience. 

They both definitely talked about these sorts of things before meeting each other. I would never do it but I can see the appeal, just from a logical perspective, of - hey why not look for a guy in these upper class people? Many people do it. I have a cousin, her mother always told her (and me) that we needed to marry rich men who would take care of us. She came from another very conservative country. I always thought it was sweet that to her this was important. But my cousin, legit only dated rich guys and eventually married a rich guy and lives a pretty fancy boring life in a big house and taking ski vacations every year.  I don't know that Meghan was particularly mercenary about it. And let's be honest, Harry wasn't dating shop girls either. 

I think it was a telling factoid that Charles was asking Harry if Meghan was going to keep acting/working and Harry was like no she's going to come work with us. But apparently that was never Charles' plan. Doesn't seem like Charles and Harry had had discussions about what would happen when he got married. I think to us it would make sense that they did, but we can see from Andrew and Edward and I think also Beatrice and Eugenie that all these royals were sort of left to drift around and figure it out. Harry did well with the structure of the army but then couldn't stay in due to security. So what was he supposed to realistically do after that? You'd think Charles and company would have had a plan...but I guess that doesn't mean Harry agreed to it. And Harry did constantly talk about not wanting to be in the royal family and if he could he would leave etc. Based on some of the things that have come out about the behind the scenes royal staffers, it seems like there is quite a bit of do it our way or the highway and according to "ancient tradition." 

Doesn't seem like it really works as a well oiled machine unless you are a willing cog. 

I think it's a shame that Harry and Meghan couldn't stick it out a bit more. I think they may have been able to make slow changes and over a few years get to an acceptable compromise between the royal machine and living their lives. Instead it's just a giant trash fire - while interesting to me - it still seems very sad.  If they only have 10  million that can't possibly last long with their lifestyle. I don't feel sorry for them because they can still make different choices. But it's still sad to see potential wasted.