Harry stepping down as a royal family member

[kittykatkitty]

Just read this on their instagram page.
They plan on becoming private citizens

They need to grow up. They behaved appallingly.

For 2 people who want to step away from the limelight they’ve gone about it the wrong way!

Archie will definitely be home schooled. After all they wouldn't want any pictures of him being taken without their control, would they?

That baby will be totally wrapped in cotton wool.

The marriage won't last. Meghan never intended it to.

Just as a republican I find the posts about how they 'only' cost x amount per person, it's nothing etc really galling. Especially when elsewhere on this site there are discussions about women unable to even afford basic sanitary towels and seemingly understanding that there is no such thing as a tiny, negligible amount of money if you haven't actually got any.

So yes actually I do resent my pound or however much it is going to further fund multi millionaires. I'll resent it even further if they are still funded via housing, security etc whilst no longer even being active royals and cashing in big time with their own private stuff.

I suspect there is a high chance Archie will be schooled in America. And they will come back for the holidays to the uk.

Peter Phillips - the Queens eldest grandchild and Anne's elder child - works completely independently and has no title. He does not no formal royal duties and has always worked

Yeah, google for Peter Philips’ ‘completely independent’ work. Whose company got the £0.75m contract to arrange the queen’s birthday event? Completely independently, of course.

As for Zara Philips and her Longines endorsement contract, or her highly-paid consultancy work for racing companies: if she had been plain old Sarah Smith, even if she was a world class rider, do you really think those contracts would have dropped into her lap? Would they bollocks.

Also, don’t believe they bollocks about them ‘only’ costing us 50p a year each, or whatever: that statistic excludes many costs. Including security.

After all they wouldn't want any pictures of him being taken without their control, would they?

This is totally normal in schools. There are many reasons why parents don't want pictures of their children taking - every one of them valid.

You're making it sound like they created the idea of child's privacy

Don’t believe THE bollocks. Not don’t believe THEY bollocks. I sound like a resident of the duchy of Cornwall (which they don’t have title to, although they claim otherwise).

The school that the royals attend do have a strict no photo rule for them anyway. No reason Archie wouldn’t be the same.

Maybe follow your own advice @FairyLightsAreMyCrack and step away if you are finding these threads difficult to read. On a public forum people are entitled to express their opinion on top news stories. Nobody is forcing you to read them.

I don't find it difficult to read, because I don't actually know the couple in question.

I do find it ridiculous that people with such a clear dislike (verging on hatred) have spent so much time slagging off people they don't know personally, and know almost nothing about.

Of course you are entitled to an opinion, but when it's based on what has clearly been a tabloid bullying campaign it's not an opinion based on fact.

Seriously, some of you sound a bit unhinged.

I haven't RTFT but I don't blame them for stepping down, although they could've done it a better way. Ever since he's been with MM she has been ripped apart by the press. She can do no right and what happened to his mum has played a part in it too imo. Imagine day in day out having to put up with that shite, it would seriously fuck up your MH. I see it as he wants to protect his family from all the crap and I would do the same if it were my dh

all Kate and William had to do is be seen with them

I suspect that Kate and William, like a lot of us, saw exactly where this was going right from the start and were even more guarded than usual about the photo ops

An obsession with image tends to do that to folk ...

They’ve gone back to America because Doria has cancer and 6 months to live.

No, that’s a lie and I made it up completely. Just as the tabloids make up shit and people believe it.

I would fully support them living a more normal life, like Peter Phillips, that would suit Harry I think, but they seem to want the glory of royalty without all the tough bits. Meghan doesn’t seem to have given it much of a go really, they have been together such a short time, and it took years for Catherine to be accepted. Britain is culturally so different from the US. In the RF you do need to put yourself promotion aside, and just graft . Had Meghan done this I think over time she would have become very loved.
The refusal to take decent advice has not helped at all.
Not unreasonable to want to carve out a different , less Royal life, in fact by far the best thing for Harry who seems a man longing to be loved, contented, and out of the limelight. This step seems more a power grab though. A big huff and flounce which makes them both look like a pair of drama queens.
Leave, let go of the titles, and don’t take any more public money.

Whatever solution the RF come up with, it's going to be soon. I genuinely think it would be better all round if the media just stopped reporting on them, full stop. I'm afraid I'm not that interested in seeing them visit a charity in Nottingham, although I'm sure it means the world to the people concerned.

Once upon a time we saw very little of the RF other than a few formal shots on official duties. We seemed to manage. People who are hungry for celebrity gossip have plenty to choose from.

@FairyLightsAreMyCrack oh please stop making the hyperbolic claims of "hatred" it's so tiresome. Honestly when did everything become about "hate"and "hatred"? You can never just be a bit nosy and discussing someone, you can never just not like someone, you can never just be analysing behaviour or mulling something over it's always "hatred!" The word has totally lost its power and makes the person using it look silly and overwrought.

I don't hate anyone, well maybe my ex husband. And I don't blame M&H though think they could have handled it better but I definitely reserve the right to discuss them in less than glowing terms and I reject being called racist, jealous and full of hatred. Because I am none of these things. I'm just discussing a huge news story and I will continue to do so all the while NOT being full of "hatred"

None of us on this thread our outside their close circle knows what’s going on so everything else is speculation and conjecture.

It’s all bloody bollocks.

The implication Jacques is that they intend to monetise Archies pictures, so it's about authorisation vs non-authorisation, not necessarily ordinary concern for child's privacy.

That is the rumour I've read, which may well be false. We'll see.

Wanting to step away because they want to be more private is fine. But stepping down so they can cash in on their connections, whilst actively courting the limelight and wanting to retain the royal perks is a bit different isn't it? And kind of contradicts that they can't cope with the media intrusion. As does the way they have gone about this, guaranteed to maximize headlines and cause controversy.

Well quite Glitch

Completely agree Glitch

If they were stepping down to live a life outside of the limelight I would respect them but they're not going to do that are they? They won't accept obscurity. For a start, how will they earn their own money outside of being celebrities?

I agree Glitch
The way they have done this has caused maximum drama and attention, and seems a deliberate and rather petulant action.
They could have talked through this with the family and presented a united front, made a new life in a way that was respectful of the Crown and this country.

Releasing this statement without telling the Queen is pretty unpleasant. They seem to care more about their agenda, and sticking two fingers up to the tabloids, than their family.

I agree entirely SoVixofVixHall.

Hollywood celebrities are treated like gods and rarely get called out (except once a year by Ricky Gervais) for their hypocrisy, grandstanding their values and opinions but never questioning their airmiles and fur lined insulatation from the 'common people.' Joining the RF - a gilded cage - was not going to be a quick and easy route and MM clearly over-estimated her ability to be instantly win over everyone's hearts and minds with her charisma and beauty. It was never going to be a quick win, but a long hard slog. She hasn't really given it much of a go and by these hasty and ill-prepared statements they have made it much harder for themselves to end up in a well regarded but more private life. That understandable goal could have been achieved but not in such a hasty and dramatic way. Its gonna be a bumpy ride,

Peter Phillips has managed it and who would even give his wife Summer a second look in the street, unless they were part of the a big RF shebang. So it would have been do-able - allbeit it from a harder starting point. They went for the big bang wedding and ceremony and now say they want something different. A harder transition.

There is no reason why siblings and their wives have to be close. Famillies grow apart. But H is rather vulnerable and cutting himself off from his old friends (who were not invited to the wedding) and the whole of his family and the life he knew is risky. I don't see him loving the US glitzy Oprah chatshow lifestyle - he is as British as they come. I think he would have been happier a minor ranked officer in the army with a jolly army wife who drank a bit too much at the weekends surrounded by his old Eton and polo chums.