Meg’s era of joy

[Triplesec]

Showing up to support her very close friend who lost her child and also the children’s hospital at an evening gala. What a friend to have in the Duchess. Meghan was glowing, fresh faced, wore minimal makeup, was confidant and smiley. She was well spoken and supportive of the evening fund raiser when interviewed. Show Up, Do Good. Yes, she always does. Loved her look too.

I think she looks beautiful.

So does kate.

They are both around the same age, and are looking fab

I, like a lot of people, thought ‘good on you’ when they first left, no problem with it all. It’s how they’ve played their hand since then that’s put them in the gutter as far as media and reputation are concerned. They should never have burned bridges, why do that, it makes no sense. It was their singularly worst move to choose professional victim as their ‘talent’.

Not hot though. Kate is lovely but she’s not hot either.

Where I do stick up for Meghan is that for her the right choice was to leave, it had been better to do it without burning bridges as to have a plan B. There is a power balance in marrying into the royal family as for all the wealth and lifestyle for her it comes with grace and favour conditions, and to remain in the fold to be dutiful. Should their marriage not of worked whilst working royals, a divorce with him having very small assets compared to their lifestyle and mostly protected from divorce and Meghan ends up a Fergie.

Not sure I’m reading this right, but it sounds like you’re suggesting that Meghan realised that if she was free to monetise her and Harry’s relationship she could build up a significant marital asset to share in a divorce. Rather than being 100% lavishly funded while married but no large settlement on divorce. And so off to America they went? That sounds extremely cynical - even on Mumsnet! And not borne out by the facts, since if that was the plan the obvious point to cut and run would be after the Netflix documentary and Spare came out - their financial trajectory has likely been downwards since then.

BunnyLake

Not hot though. Kate is lovely but she’s not hot either.

I'm not an expert on judging whether a woman is "hot". It reminds me of an India Knight book in which a female character asks a male character what makes a woman a "dirty ride".
However, isn't William supposed to have said "Wow! Kate's hot!" when he saw her modeling her friend's designer dress? As long as her husband thinks she's hot, that's probably what's important to her.

I have nothing against her but why she always picks the worse outfits????

She was hot in that dress at Uni to be fair.

As long as her husband thinks she's hot, that's probably what's important to her.

Exactly. Plus, as they navigate their 40s with 3 young children and plenty of stress, they’ll always have the small satisfaction of knowing that when each of them was young and at their personal peak attractiveness, they chose each other. (Plenty of couples who gave been together for years have that -not just them!).

Maybe this is why everyone was telling Harry to slow down in his relationship with Meghan. Marrying in to the RF is not a way to gain untold personal wealth and comes with a great deal of commitment. You are marrying in to a job as well as a relationship and if you have no intention of remaining in the fold and being dutiful, then it is not for you. I don’t quite buy this “stifling” image of life as a royal. Yes, the monarchy and it’s hierarchy come first, but there are ways to have personal fulfilment within that, as long as you understand what the royals are supposed to be about and are not expecting that fulfilment to come in the form of personal wealth. It’s clearly not a life that many would choose and this is why many were concerned that Meghan had not understood the situation correctly

Marry in haste, repent at leisure…

(At which point in comes a poster who says they married their dh on the second date and have been blissfully happy for thirty years….)

Marrying a “job” should always be thoroughly thought out. That could mean a farmer, or someone with a shop… or in the armed forces. My cousin, in the air force, met online and swiftly married someone who immediately started whingeing about it. He left and then he was miserable and she was miserable that they didn’t have the lifestyle she had imagined. They divorced.

Actually I should have done some more due diligence as dh’s flippin’ job has almost driven me to drink over the years…

Harry and Meghan told us openly that they valued the opportunity to earn a private income - and obviously chafed at the restriction that they could not personally profit from being senior royals. The late Queen was right when she said a life of public service was not for everyone. It’s fair enough that Meghan and Harry decided it wasn’t for them - but they didn’t have to jump into it, then decide they wanted half in and half out, and then try to burn the house down when they left.

Are there really children out there who’ve deliberately never been told by their parents they’re beautiful/very pretty/gorgeous etc?

People obviously have a perfect right to comment on her behaviour, her motives,her relationships, her "work", her social media presence and so on. But the attacks on her personal appearance on here have been shocking. Under what circumstances is it OK to talk about a woman's "saggy tits"? Whoever they are?

I do still wonder how that private income would have been achieved even if they had been allowed the half in half out thing. Obviously they had set up the original Sussex Royal website, and I seem to remember there were plans for some merchandise on there, but I’m not clear as to how that would have generated a large income (same as ARO). Harry is still a Prince, but he doesn’t seem to have had much traction as a rent a royal so I’m not sure that would have worked. All their other ventures have floundered due to lack
of input or talent in the chosen area. So I’m not sure what their income stream would have been if they had remained in the fold. Unless they assumed that they would still receive money from the firm 🤷‍♀️

typos

I seem to recall that, pre-COVID, he got hired for megamoney to do an after-dinner speech. That could have worked for them - a million-or-so a pop for speeches and appearances here and there. But their unpleasant behaviour over the last four years has blown that.

He doesn't come over as someone who'd be an entertaining speaker though .....

@smilesy I've always imagined they'd be thinking they'd get paid for doing lots of talk shows and after dinner speeches etc etc. Maybe the odd TV advert (looking at Peter)

But talk about what? What goes on behind the scenes? What the rules are for standing on the balcony?
There's only so much they can say before they are infringing on other people's privacy.

Documentaries about palaces and stuff, again limit to who's interested.
What were Netflix and Spotify actually expecting from them?

The RF were right to say no the half in, half out. I think H&M burnt bridges because they were bitter at not getting the part-time royal status. And it ruined their USP.

I am wondering what their USP ever actually was, though? After dinner speaking only works if you have a lot of life experiences or experience in a specific area (such as a sport), or you are an entertaining speaker. I don’t think either of them fit in to this category. And how many times would they be invited somewhere just because of the fact that they are royal? I’m sure they could have made a living of sorts, but still not the mega bucks needed to warrant the lifestyle they want

Yes, he did and I'm pretty certain they expected the after dinner circuit to sustain them in style at least short term.

Problem with that cunning plan was he played the Diana card straight away and as that was pretty much his entire hand even gullible bankers would have got fed up pretty quickly.

He was always going to have to cough royal dirt in escalating amounts to maintain the kind of income he wanted but he was too dim-witted to see it.

I don't think they could have charged for after-dinner speaking (as that's something royals do, insufficient separation). Neither Spare nor the H&M Netflix programme could have happened.

But Invictus programme, the leadership one and Polo could have, and probably the podcasts too. And Meghan could have continued acting (ER II was ok with this, especially in the early years of marriage as a transition to full-on royal duties) and voice-over work.

ARO? Maybe - but it would face more direct competition from the established royal gift shops plus Highgrove and Duchy lines

Paid product placement? Probably not as it would conflict with the existing system of endorsement by Royal Warrant, and is far too close to rent-a-royal. Cash for access? Definitely not - see previous examples of this (Andrew, Sarah, the Wessexes, as they were at the time of the scandal).

I don't believe that anyone paid Harry 'megamoney' to speak. I think they put it out there to give the impression that someone had.

Not even the likes of Clinton or Obama get a million for a speech. Obama's fee is apparently about half that, and he's a former American president, highly intelligent and with real presence. Nobody is going to pay anything close to a million to hear the 5th in line and his actress wife talk about how shit it is to be royal.

I also think all this spare/Netflix money is setting them up for a fall.

I think they believe this sort of money that will keep rolling in. It won’t. This is it. But they live a very expensive lifestyle that is great if you earn $10 million a year, but there is no more mega bucks coming their way. So they will dwindle the funds.

The only chance they will have of earning huge sums is if meghan sells her memoir. But that feels a while away…and if you’re writing about something that happened 10 years ago when you’re only a royal for 18months, I’m not sure if that’s enough. If they split up and she writes a book….she would get a huge pay day.

He could have been coached. A few platitudes about the actual event. A segue into "reminds me of something my Gran said..." followed by a few engaging anodyne anecdotes about the main RF players. A few insights into the life of a Royal - "so, when we were at the Jubilee we all....". Some scripted jokes. And a gentle sign-off, returning to the theme of the event.

How hard would that have been for someone with his background?

Instead, he's gone whiney, scowly scold, and no-one wants that at their dinner party.

Edited to add (in the light of comments above) could they have had the cash paid into a charity vehicle, then paid themselves a fee while disbursing sums here and there? Would that have been an acceptable half-in/half-out solution?

Totally agree.
I think Harry could probably be quite an entertaining guy to listen to but there is a limit to what he could say.

It amazed me they ever got big deals with Netflix and Spotify

They’d both get huge pay days if they dished the dirt on each other. One’s not going to do it without the other firing ‘right back at you’.

Now those books I read and those docus I’d watch 😁