Harry and Megan dubbed "fucking grifters" Part Deux

[Qbish]

Harry and Meghan slammed by Spotify executive after podcast deal ends | The Independent

The old thread got closed, just as I was trying to quote tweet someone! So I've started this one, because this shitshow is still rumbling on

I’m doubting it too. The rumour is big fight between harry and Meghan , she called him toxic, he collapsed and had some form of mental break down and was taken to hospital. It doesn’t say as an inpatient though.

H&M are not TV producers, which is a very hard creative job. You can't just call someone up and go "Monkey tennis!" and have them create a hit series.

Was that Alan Partridge, by any chance?

My idea would be a documentary tracking how Harry was assisted into a royal 'patron founder' role with Invictus, as part of his royal duties, which was part of his public service in exchange for being royal and being 'taken care of' by the monarchy; and then how he left his life as a senior royal; how he then agreed to monetise his connection with Invictus; and then agreed with Invictus financially 'partnering' with Better Up, seemingly contracting with Better Up for services; and at the same time took a paid role with Better Up as 'Chief Impact Officer' a.k.a. 'CHIMPO'.

@potniatheron Oh yes...that makes sense. Why he wasted valuable time arguing rather than rushing to his Grandmothers side has always been a mystery. It was so odd. And the family was having none of it.

I work in the media and just wanted to say something about H&M's attitude to the UK vs US media.

In the UK it's really not that difficult to get a story pulled if you have heavy weight enough lawyers (eg Schillings, Carter Ruck) and the editors genuinely believe you will sue. Also since the hacking scandal, all papers but especially the tabloids are incredibly paranoid about every. single. line of an expose or salacious piece being 'stood up' and lawyered, line by line. Plenty of well known figures have and continue to benefit from this.

The upshot of this is that if you read something in a UK paper, even the Sun or the Mail, then you can be pretty confident that it's absolutely true.

the US press is not like this. I had a client many years ago who was about to be the subject of a less than flattering piece in a very big and well respected US publication. He called the lawyers in, there were certain aspects that he strongly felt were being unfairly represented. In the UK we could probably have got it pulled. But not in the US. It was explained to me that in the US, because of the First Amendment, the attuitude is very much 'publish and be damned'. Ie publish the thing and then argue in the courts afterwards. Also in the US, you can't get an injunction or take action against a piece that is GOING to be published. You can only make a case once the piece IS actually published.

This means that:

1. The US media is far more likely to be confident about publishing unflattering stuff about H&M than the UK tabloids ever were
2. The US media is willing to publish 'rumours' like Harry being taken away in an ambulance, because they're fairly confident it's true, whereas the UK media could not do that unless it had been lawyered line by line and were 100% certain that every line was true

So in conclusion - it's going to get ugly and they are absolutely in the wrong country for privacy.

Oh that's interesting. So no 'super injunction' type stuff in the US? I guess that would interfere with First Amendment?

I think Harry will find that criticising the First Amendment will make him very unpopular in the US. I do wonder if the differences you outline is something Harry will understand. Surely MM knew this?

Great post, @potniatheron . Small wonder that Harold has declared The First Amendment as "bonkers", and partnered with the Aspen Institute to try to limit the free speech of Americans.

*is "bonkers"

I don't remember whether we discussed an injunction. I am sure we did and were told it couldn't be done because of 1st amendment. But this was over 10 years ago so can't remember.

The other thing I remember is that the scope of what's in the 'public interest' is very wide in the US. So for example, in the UK the sun often gets stuff shut down because the subject's lawyers say it's too personal / private / may cause distress and isn't in the public interest. There have been several recent high profile examples of this. In the US, you could never use that argument because anything that is deemed interesting enough to the public will get published whether it's in their interests or not (which is of course subjective anyway)

The basic difference is:

UK - be sure you're on firm ground before you publish
US - just publish and argue in the court later

Harry probably didn't understand this, no. I don't think he realised just how much work went on behind the scenes to protect his rep in the UK. The Palace PR machines are formidable. I honestly think he didn't realise this.

MM I guess would've understood it but prior to meeting Harry was never famous enough for it to be an issue? The way she deals with the media is, in my professional judgement, still the methods employed by hustling C-List actresses and I don't think she quite realises that when you're A-List those sharp elbowed, plant a story through Omid type of things will backfire on you.

@potniatheron very interesting.

Excellent summaries, potniatheron, showing again the value of having a proper Constitution instead of our more nebulous arrangement

And of course, now he's found out that it enables things he'd rather it didn't, Harry considers that wrong too - just like anything else which happens not to suit

I fully agree with this and I also think it helps explain the strange kerfuffle on the day that HMTQ passed away, whereby Harry was late getting there because at the last minute he wasn't allowed to bring Megan and missed the flight the rest of the family were on. I can well imagine a family row because there was a concern that Megan's presence might end up opening the door a crack for Netflix.

Yes, the RF took extreme measures to keep Harry separate or in the dark about what was going on. At the time it felt like almost petty, like they were still trying to prolong "the rift" but it makes much more sense from the perspective that they knew Harry needed them for footage to uphold his end of the deal with Netflix. Maybe he was/is under immense pressure to provide footage for Netflix. Would also explain why he was filming with his phone during the entire high-speed Manhattan car chase.

To be honest, had Megxit been more amicable, it may even have worked out. Many families have rifts but those eventually get patched up after the birth of children, death of grandparents, a bit of time etc. Netflix was definitely hoping they would get exclusive access to the RF at big events like the Jubilee and possibly even private ones like Lilibet meeting the Queen or H&M meeting Kate, William and the kids. Maybe William or Kate would have extended an olive branch and allowed H&M to visit them and even film part of it. Not entirely unreasonable as they also provide select access to imagery/footage of themselves and their kids to the UK media.

Reality content is extremely cheap to produce as they simply need a film crew to record something happening in real life. Original content like Meghan's kids story about a girl called Pearl or some feminist remake of Ms Havisham are extremely expensive because everything must be organised, cast and produced from scratch. That was allegedly another reason why Netflix rejected all their ideas because they know those concepts are far too expensive to generate any return on investment. Unless H&M can give them what they truly want, insider footage of the RF, then their time at Netflix is definitely over.

PR statements are hard to believe. All companies on the brink of bankruptcy send out statements pretending all is well. Spotify also claimed the podcast was doing great, streaming at number 1 and then abruptly pulled the plug.

The hospital story was published in a local Montecito newspaper. Obviously not the most credible source but the consensus is that "something" happened even if the details are murky. Reminds me a lot of tiaragate and the story about Meghan allegedly making Kate cry at the dress fitting. Lots of speculation with nobody knowing many details but years later, it's confirmed that something did indeed happen.

If he continues to criticise the first amendment his after dinner speaking will dry up. The Americans are fanatical about their constitution, and having Royal attack their most prized amendment is a sure fire way to destroy your reputation. I'm amazed he got away with saying what he did.

@potniatheron

Trump managed to silence stories as his friend at the national enquirer signed them up to exclusives and then sat on them before the election

i do remember agents would use the power of their actors to kill stories too. For example if you wanted to run a story on MM you would be told no more interviews from the rest of the agents actors such as the Rock and Ben Affleck and they would threaten to get advertising pulled from the publication which included their actors eg a new rock film coming up

I think Harry will find that criticising the First Amendment will make him very unpopular in the US.

Harry said something about it once and then self corrected. He said he thought it was ‘bonkers’ and then he said something like he ‘didn’t want to go down that road, he was new to the US and he really didn’t understand the amendment.’ I remember this, as he said it when he was on his book tour. I don’t remember there being much upset at it. On social media there was some criticism but only on the Harry/Meghan Disliker threads. And I think a couple of reactionary politicians had a go at him. But that’s par for the course with reactionaries. Anything to get their voices heard.

@potniatheron that is very interesting. It also explains some of the content of US gossip magazines (which I used to read at the hairdressers). Stuff like US weekly. They contain the most outrageous stories about all the celebs. You feel like whilst there may be a grain of truth a lot of it is made up rubbish. The amount of times they have published stories saying Jennifer Anniston is pregnant or Julia Roberts is on the verge of divorce etc.

You just don't get that in UK publications.

I wonder why they are fixated on UK publications when US gossip magazines publish so much worse stuff. Is it because everyone sort of knows to take the US gossip mags with a pinch of salt whereas if it is printed in a UK publication people will believe it to be true?

I suspect its easy to ignore stories in publications that also publish 'Elvis seen on Mars' etc.

And yes you've a point @Morestrangerthings - its wasn't a considered comment that people would have taken seriously, more a bumbling ramble.

I really hope the hospital stories are not true, the whole thing is quite tragic for Harry especially. I think he has his faults and has handled things quite badly but It seems to come from a place where he was desperately unhappy with his life before he met Meghan and wanted to change it, wanted to escape.

It really think he is surrounded by people who are not good for him.

Yes in many US (specifically LA as well) entertainment industry contracts, the creator is paid 50% upfront, and 50% at the end of the time period. The advance is none-refundable but the company gets to decide if the partnership is successful enough to warrant the second payout. They are not receiving a steady trickle of money throughout the entire time period. In this case it's clear the Netflix is stalling for time until the contract expires. H&M will obviously be attempting to "create" but their ideas still need to be greenlit by Netflix. Original content is extremely costly and time-consuming to create so if there's nothing in the pipeline right now (which I assume due to lack of any mention of upcoming projects aside from Invictus in the aforementioned PR statement) then there's no chance they can complete anything before 2025.

@potniatheron Great insight on the differences from UK and US media, thank you!

Harry on the First Amendment:

“I’ve got so much I want to say about the First Amendment as I sort of understand it, but it is bonkers,” the former senior royal confessed. “I don’t want to start going down the First Amendment route because that’s a huge subject and one which I don’t understand because I’ve only been here a short time. But, you can find a loophole in anything. You can capitalize or exploit what’s not said rather than uphold what is said. I believe we live in an age now where you've got certain elements of the media redefining to us what privacy means. There's a massive conflict of interest.”

That quotation comes from Vanity Fair btw, picked at random from a quick search. I don't think they've misquoted him.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/05/prince-harry-armchair-expert-podcast-first-amendment-bonkers-conservative-reactions#:~:text=%E2%80%9CI've%20got%20so%20much,been%20here%20a%20short%20time.

The screen writers strikes can't be helping them either - it is very difficult to established producers with a good track record to get content at the moment never mind novices with dubious track track record.

Elvis seen on Mars' etc.

When I was on Denver Colorado in the 90s, I was in a coffee shop that sold newspapers and they had those newspapers I’d only heard about, ‘Alligator born with human legs’ .

(Not having a go at the Denverites, as I found them to be the most polite and gracious people. But there obviously was a market - someone must have been reading them ).

Have they actually done any after dinner speeches in the last year ?

@Mylovelygreendress Not a clue...but it would be an income source potentially. I seem to recall reports of earning insane sums to speak at events but can't remember details. Its more that he can't burn bridges in the US too.

Thanks Autumn Crow. Not a big deal. Nigel Farage must have been a bit desperate for attention to tweet that. Piers Morgan pretending Meghan got him fired is funny. I saw that breakfast show when Piers spat the dummy and stormed off set ranting and raving. The other host seemed very glad to see him go. It was priceless tv. But very unprofessional lol.

I guess so for as long as the circuit are happy to hear the same old rehashed whinging ad infinitum .
I just wonder what Betterup think of their ‘Chief Impact Officer’? I can’t honestly imagine that his performance to date has impressed them; the litigetous, incessant whinging and self centred behaviour is hardly what any company would want from a high-profile appointment.