Harry and Meghan (15)

[Froq]

No harm in having it ready for the next event/announcement...

Hey, do you remember Harry? The one who used to smile and have a vibrant inner child?

Fantastic interview of Harry, just before MM crashed the Invicus games, and then invited herself to his mate’s wedding, even though they’d split up.

In my opinion she was stalking him: he was in her crosshairs.

I agree with Nerfballs about the questioning of Harry's parentage. It's loathesome, and goady, especially as the press knows full well that it's untrue because JH and Diana hadn't yet met.

Nobody could blame H&M for being upset about some of the coverage, it has been very nasty. But there are better ways of dealing with it.

It's the going off piste all the time that is the problem, and why I think there can be no role for them as royals. They've demonstrated time and time again that they can't be trusted to put Queen and country first. And when you're that close to the throne, it's kind of non-negotiable.

Hey, do you remember Harry? The one who used to smile and have a vibrant inner child?

Do you know him? Do spill.

Yes questioning of Harry’s parentage bad.
I agree the British press can be vile in the way they slant things, I just don’t think that the North American press and, more to the point, the internet will be much better.

I saw some of the numerous negative comments they got on Instagram recently and that’s their own platform. They were deleting the comments but unless they disable comments, they can’t prevent them. Their Instagram account makes them much more accessible to the public in fact. The tone and content of it us more personal and direct then the ‘at arm’s length, clearly official’ tone & content of the other royal Insta accounts. They’re effectively inciting engagement. That will be both a blessing and a curse for them.

IsntCoffeeWonderful That's quite a staggering change from then to now. He seems like a shadow of who he once was.

Hey, do you remember Harry? The one who used to smile and have a vibrant inner child? well I’ve got a teenager who always grinned like crazy in photos and was a gorgeous, lively and really cheerful little soul. Now I have a teenager who won’t have his photo taken and if he has to Will Not Smile. Now if he was jumping around and grinning I’d worry at his age.

Thank you for posting that, @IsntCoffeeWonderful. It's a nice reminder of the Harry we all hope still exists underneath this other stuff.

Hey, do you remember Harry? The one who used to smile and have a vibrant inner child?

Do you know him? Do spill.

Not sure what your point is, Pallisers? Are you saying you think he is faking it in the video?

Lordfrontpaw - know what you mean about the teenager! But Harry is well into his thirties - hopefully his moods are no longer hormone related!

hopefully his moods are no longer hormone related!

No, but they might be affected by someone who is

Now now MischiefFleas

Kind of odd to criticise someone with known mental health problems for looking unhappy, and even worse to blame his wife - someone he presumably loves and who supports him through all the crap you don't see.

My DH has clinical depression, managed well you would never know but when an episode hits he looks awful. Actually a lot like Harry's been looking lately. As the closest person to him I have the pleasure of his company, but I also sometimes have to coax him out of bed, monitor his risk of suicide, talk through the mess in his head and help re-orient him towards what is true about himself multiple times a day. I've had to sit with him while he sobs his guts out and know there's nothing I can do but be there. I would be pissed if someone saw DH looking "a shadow of himself" and blamed me or our marriage - if only they knew!!

nerfballs

You make a really good point. I know exactly what you're talking about actually.
I do really feel for Harry, it just seems like since M has arrived on the scene he's gone into a nosedive. That may be coincidence, it may be that he's being triggered by feeling responsible for her and fearing she will be harassed to the point she'll leave him. Who knows. You are right that it may be unkind to speculate.

It just seems that he wants a different kind of life to the one she wants at the end of the day. Since she's come on the scene he has become isolated from his family and friends, and seems to be being dragged around by the collar by her. No one knows what is really going on however.

Also , that sounds really hard for you nerfballs

That sounds awful for you both Nerfballs.

I agree we need to think more carefully about how we attribute blame and thank you for the reminder. I don't think people actually mean to blame M, it's more a perfect storm of H meeting someone who he fell for who was clearly star struck by his status, at a time when he was desperately searching for The One.

They are obviously in love, but whether they are right for each other is a different matter. If they hadn't felt the need to marry and start a family so quickly, I suspect the relationship would have foundered for all the same reasons they have quit the UK.

Nerfballs

Kind of odd to criticise someone with known mental health problems for looking unhappy

Has he got known mental health problems?

That, to me means a mental illness that's been diagnosed.

Feeling sad because one's mother died is generally normal. Horrible and uncomfortable, of course, but not unusual and not a reason for everything one does 20 odd years later.

I'm aware he's spoken about needing counselling and remembering his mother every time a flash bulb goes off etc.

If the counselling - or any other treatment he may have received - hasn't helped, and if he is unwell, that's all the more reason not to court publicity and to retire from the royal family.

The dread flash bulbs won't stop going off immediately, but they'll stop a lot sooner if he doesn't still want to make speeches and public appearances and his wife isn't doing Disney V/Os.

Obviously, as a young and new 38 year old mother of an 8 month old baby, and who isn't thriving but only surviving, MM can't be criticised either.

I don't think people actually mean to blame M

The majority of posters on this thread and the ones before it have done just that over and over again. And if not directly blaming her, then mocking her, making snide little comments like "are you okay?", and also picking up on, repeating, and sometimes linking to other media that has blamed her in even worse terms. And as for speculation, that has been constant and often particularly nasty. It's shameful, really.

It is a staggering change is t it?

Maybe he was affected by his time in the army, and his active service, being shot at and all that. a lot of people find they have post traumatic syndrome from that.

I’ve been listening to interviews of a royal photographer who used to travel with Harry all round the world, and who has known him for years, and he’s absolutely grief stricken at the change since he got married, so maybe the change isn’t a result of the tour of active service, or whatever it’s called, and maybe it is as he suggests, “since he’s been with Meghan”.

I dont claim to know Harry pallisers, but it’s interesting to look at old videos, and listen and see how he was.
To my mind he was all about service, serving his queen and country, and those who also served, and his main outlook was optimistic.
He’s well into his 20s in the video, not a teenager.

So, putting together video interviews and also information available from those who used to know him extremely well after many years of working with him, we can see that all of this quitting the RF and the Hoo Ha all points to a sea change in Harry after he met and married MM.

I’m not blaming her, it’s just an observation, but I think it’s very very telling that Harry was so defensive of Meghan saying she had ‘no family’ etc whereas it’s been proven that she does indeed have a family, and seemed to have had a happy childhood, with her father bankrolling her through school etc. that the things she said were off her own bat (the soap ads) were in fact school projects.

I think Harry is a protective person, and he may have projected the need to protect his mother onto Meghan, but imo the fundamental truths of Harry and Meghan’s relationship are flawed, as she wasn’t all alone in the world, making her own way, and acting from her own sense of advocacy, also, she actively courts media coverage with a smile on her face, not hides from it.

I feel sad about how such a popular Prince could have fallen from grace.
His narrative is kindof Paradise Lost... the fall of the bright angel... the banishment from Eden.

Of course we have to allow for the fact, that maybe he wanted to leave, as his ‘spare’ ness became more obvious, and he willingly took a bite of the apple.
Maybe his narrative is more like Snow White’s?

Here’s a thought... maybe Harry is the Disney Princess!

Blaming her and mocking her are not the same FramboiseRoyale. I'm not holding her responsible for H's state of mind or his decisions. I think she is the catalyst for them, but he's old enough to make those decisions for himself, poor as they are.

As far as mocking is concerned, she put herself out there very deliberately as a public figure. She and H have both spoken of their "platform". They have used it to make speeches that people have found hypocritical, pompous and patronising. Just as politicians find themselves being ridiculed and satirised, they should expect the same.

Blaming her, mocking her, who cares? I don’t understand why it matters to anyone with a life that a bunch of random people on the internet are having a chat and occasionally saying slightly unkind things about Meghan Markle - who never know what’s been said here, and whom none of us will ever meet.

Too true, Jilly

Slightly unkind? Have you actually read the posts?

I care because much of it seems to me to be deeply misogynistic.

I mean it’s Saturday afternoon, there must be better things to do, and I mean if you’re not actually enjoying the topic and find the majority of posts snide, nasty and “shameful” then WTF are you doing?

Great post Coffee

Jilly IMO it does matter .I hate the chinese whisper effect ,how something is quoted and before you know it ppl are saying things like "time and time again ".

A common criticism in these threads for example is that Meghan has said that she hates England and this seems to be accep[ted as a fact .Another is that H&M wanted to cherry pick which events they would attend as representatives of the Queen .

As another poster said on a previous thread

there is real influence. These threads contribute to the attitude of the press and therefore impact Meghann and Harry as the targets of these stories.

as a thread it's contributed to the news cycle about Meghan and Harry. All these threads aren't happening in a vacuum. Today, on one thread, the DM, the Sun and whatever that Harry Sparkle website was, will have had extra traffic directed to it from here.
They will make more money and come out with more of these speculative stories, that will posted on here. And so on. Multiply that by 14 threads. It's not the only place online where this is happening either.

Such an interesting post Coffee. I was watching the video posted above and he talked about his mother watching him, and looking down at him, as though she was a very active presence and influence in his life. I find this quite sad, actually, because of course she isn't. His recollection of her is frozen at the age he was when she died. The memory he is keeping alive is his alone.

Would she have approved of Meghan? Possibly yes, at first on a superficial level, but I don't think she would be happy about what Harry has given up for her. Diana was a romantic but no fool.