Any Americans on Here? What is the consensus in USA on Harry and Meghan?

[Geebee12]

In the UK the media seems mainly 'against' and aghast about H and M (as are all my friends and family - even the anti royal ones). What is the mood in America - is the media/public starting to turn against them, or do they still have strong support?

Not American, just shocked all your friends and family talk about it! I never hear anybody mention them in real life and I'm also in the UK! I see it on news and on here obviously but never ever in real life. I thought it was a celeb gossip type thing, everybody hearing things but not really a topic in real life

Shocked that my friends and family are talking about something that is front page news on all the papers and all over Sky and MN??

You are clearly fairly shockable!!!!

My friends and family don't talk about it either. It shouldn't be front page headline news.

There's no such thing as "consensus". There's just individual opinions of varying strength and vocality. There'll be people who support them, people who don't and people who are utterly indifferent. Rather like in the UK, but without our rabid over-invested tabloids to influence the weak minded.

We're all just humoured by someone opening themselves up for complete ridicule. They're both embarrassing themselves so much. It's light entertainment for us.

If I had to pick a side, I'm with the RF

All the people that feign disinterest are so tiresome.

It doesn't make you superior at all, by the way.

Saw it mentioned on here that the RF are merely state funded Kardashians. I'd agree with this sentiment. Very expensive entertainment for the masses.

Aren't they just? I find it interesting that they are clearly so disinterested in the RF/Harry that they click on a link clearly about Harry and Meghan!!!

I'm not disinterested, I'm just fascinated by people who form a view based on events that are being reported second hand (not using direct quotes) by a newspaper that is currently being sued by H & M. I'd treat that as a really untrustworthy source. I'll wait until I've read it myself to form my opinion.

*Shocked that my friends and family are talking about something that is front page news on all the papers and all over Sky and MN??

You are clearly fairly shockable!!!!*

Boris Johnson was on front pages when he rode a bike, forgot why. Doesn't mean anybody in real life was actually speaking about it! It's like any other celeb gossip type things, I thought people just read, laughed/ranted and forgot about it day to day.
What do they say? Do they talk about it how people spoke about huge stories like the Saville story, or when people talk about the PM and things like that? Have never, ever heard of this whole saga mentioned in real life

It's not second hand - it's direct passages from the book.

It's not just one newspaper - The Times and The Guardian both got it early, as did SKY. It's provenance has been checked closely enough for the BBC to run it.

👌🏻 Brilliant 🤩 very well put 🤣🤣

The cards are stacked against Harry and Meghan battling all the resources of the palace media machine! I feel sorry for them, even though they seem like a couple of chumps!

Come off it, no one could possibly be shocked that people are talking about the news story with the most current coverage, why do posters make such stupid statements

Does everyone you know lack any kind of interest in curret affair or do you not know what shocked means?

Greetings from the very cold East Coast. You can see for instance the front pages of the Boston Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post and the NYT. Harry and Spare are not in the top 10 news items. No one I know and work with (I'm an academic) has any interest in them. After Oprah which many people watched there was a smattering of sympathy. But America has much much much bigger celebrities than them. The current things people are talking about is Kevin McCarthy finally having been elected Speaker and what deal he must have struck for that. And that Damar Hamlin is recovering.

I got into trouble with Meghan fans for saying this before but in the US they are very much B/C list celebrities. I read UK papers (because I studied there and spent time there) and it's like night and day. Remember the big celebs in the US (and I like reading a trashy mag or two) are the ones who get invited to the Oscars, or walk the red carpet at the Met Gala. Harry and Meghan for all their star power are not quite in that league. And so these memoirs while shocking in the UK are not quite creating the same ripples in the US. Having said that Anderson Cooper is interviewing them and so is Colbert.

There is also another factor which is that if they want to go down the Obama/Clinton Foundation route they need a lot of credibility. And talking about being a young stallion or your frostbitten penis isn't quite the image of gravitas you want to convey.

Do they talk about it how people spoke about huge stories like the Saville story

Why would they, Savile was neither American, nor married to an American, nor living in America, nor intent on building a new life in America.

If not much interest in the US, what it shows is that they have yet to make much impact there, assuming that is what they want. And for their stated aims of a life of service and philanthropy, they need a platform. As the bridges to UK are burning so bright and merrily right now, the assumption is that this does not matter as tey are playing to an American audience now.

Based on responses to this thread so far, it doesn't like they've made much headway

This WaPo piece more or less conveys the American sentiment on it: www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/06/prince-harry-spare-takeaways/

I'm in the U.K. and everyone I know thinks they're right/ are saying the truth! So not sure there is a consensus here even if the media hates them

This is really interesting, thank you for taking the time to answer.

You are welcome. Up with a snotty baby coughing into my face. And as I said literally no one I know (or my husband knows- to be fair he would struggle to remember which brother was Harry and which brother was Will) has any interest in this. So I indulge in my RF stuff on MN!

My American friends and relatives were all very interested in how I felt about the Queen dying it was the first time any of them asked about royalty. Many of them messaged, I was surprised.

No one has asked how I feel about H&M at all nor I them.

We watch the BBC news, Harry’s book was headline news yesterday. Small chatter at dinner having just heard about his revelations on the six o clock edition. It was that it was distasteful writing how many people he killed and he had made himself a prime target for terrorist attacks. Then some slightly acidic comments about how thick he must be. We then moved on swiftly to discussing our own Grandfather's attitudes to war having both served in WW2. They didn’t discuss it basically.

There was some over exuberant woman on Times radio talking about superstars etc and how US loved them. Im
glad they haven’t lost their senses to same extent reading the posts below. She sounded a bit doolally for a reporter

Does everyone you know lack any kind of interest in curret affair or do you not know what shocked means?

As I said, Boris Johnson was on front pages for riding a bike, doesn't mean anybody was really speaking about it. It's just celeb gossip, not sure what they'd be talking about in that sort of way? "have you heard the latest?! She's only gone and said this about Peter down the road" sort of thing
I'm sure Heat magazine was all gossip too, sold quite well, but nobody really spoke about the gossip in real life

Yep - always seeing the Kardashian's touring factories and supporting charities. They really help the president out entertaining foreign dignitaries too. Exactly the same.

I’m American living in US and concur with everything you’ve written.

It was on the the TV news last night in the bar where we had dinner, at some point. There are more important things going on here. But no one I know talks about them or cares much. When I do hear anything it’s accompanied with eye-rolling.