Sentebale #5

[glitterturd]

As I finished the last one.

She wouldn't have a brand without him though.

This is the trouble. He's a liability and a millstone. He lacks credibility and has trashed the only thing he can merchandise. She can do different stuff, but she's only where she is because of him. Tricky.

What 'different stuff' can she really do though?

5 years on from finding freedom, with global fame and having had lucrative contracts and the opportunity to work with top professionals thrown in her lap, she's back to affiliate merching random clothes and selling white labelled groceries on the internet.

I do think there is a high likelihood that they will drag each other down, to the point that they both end up with nothing but their titles and nowhere to go.

Maybe Harry could pose with a mere suggestion of a child in the picture: a small, Burberry-clad arm reaching up to hold daddy's hand, perhaps.
They'd need to avoid the whole Daniella-Westbrook-and-baby look though.

That's the conclusion I have reached too, with one addition: the 'elevation' also involved her looking more pregnant at four months (January, the Birkenhead visit when the bump slipped) than probably any other woman has ever done during a first pregnancy.

That ship has sailed, if it was ever afloat to start with.

No, I don't think any brand would take a risk with Harry.

The trouble is now anything Meghan tries to make money (and I'll give that she is at least trying) is tarnished, partly by things like the Oprah interview which was both of them, partly because she's just not that likeable or authentic to many but I think crucially because Harry. His "brand" is toxic and it's getting worse at a rate of knots.

After the Revolution the Russian Princes (the ones who got out) some of the wealthiest and most privileged people in history, had to start again. Some of them managed to get at least a proportion of the jewels, pictures and money out with them, others with next to nothing made a good stab at surviving in a world that was utterly alien to their experience. The last Tsars own sister ended up living in a few rooms at the despised Frog Cott. Harry seems to be acting like an aggrieved exile, forced from his homeland, stripped of his birthright and is thus clinging stubbornly to trappings like titles for his children.

None of it washes because He Did It Himself Because He Wanted To.

Frustrated? Not if she knew precisely what she was taking on. If you are a woman who wants total control, having a man child as a husband is just what you want.

IMHO, H will always have the upper hand in this situation. H has that photo, which looks like 4 tall men and 1 child following his mom's coffin.

W's height meant that visually he looked a man despite being a barely fifteen-year-old boy, which meant W never evoked the depth of sympathy that H, his visually smaller brother evoked. H has an entire army of mostly women, of all races, who still view him through that photo and think..."poor motherless child". Almost all of these people would collectively blame M in a heartbeat..."wicked Jezebel who seduced him and led him astray."

If there is one thing we have learned from H via his various interviews and books (including Finding Freedom and Endgame as they contributed), is that H is never, ever to blame. H is the victimiest victim that ever victimed. It is the fault of [insert one of W / Pa / Camilla / W&C / Men-in-Grey / Media / Corgis].

H quite happily flamed his family of origin with zero consideration of their health and mental well-being. I am not sure why anyone would think, if H ever started blaming M for their failure to succeed in California, that he would not treat her in the exact same way he has treated his family of origin. I do not think the even the children would restrain him, after all H's parents engaged in a public media war despite having 2 children.

And I think that photo will be H's trump card.

I really do think that if she wanted to position herself as a feel good, harvesting cabbages in the garden while preparing wholesome homemade dishes for friends type influencer, the time to do it was 5 years ago. There was still enough good will and not enough known about her to make that persona at least semi plausible.

Now though, she's shown herself to be very bitter and obsessed with her own image, and the pseudo royal stuff such as the 'tours' just make her look pretentious and desperate. Harry's declining reputation obviously doesn't help either, because she's allied her 'brand' so closely with him, only starting the 'professional separation' just a few months ago.

Not to mention that the whole 'lifestyle influncer' thing is very last decade and the current times really aren't ideal for launching an 'elevated' lifestyle brand. The whole 'vibe' just seems really out of synch with the times.

I can't see As ever lasting, after the initial flurry of her fans buying stuff,, if indeed they even have, rather than just saying they have , I think it will peter out.

I don't think so. However much it pulls at the heart strings (and it does), there will be a point when his behaviour as an adult becomes so distasteful that the photograph is nolonger enough. Imagine, for a moment, that the Charity Commission finds Harry and the former trustees guilty of financial mismanagement, and Harry's defense is to say 'Ah yes, but I was a poor motherless boy made to walk behind my mother's coffin in front of X million people.'

It would be really interesting to go back and read Finding Freedom, Courtiers and Revenge in light of more recent events. I havent read them but I bet there are some right corkers that seem more relelvant now.

I do recommend the Tom Bower book, Revenge.
It's very informative. He stands by his sources and has asked them to sue if it is untrue.

I agree - I increasingly wonder if the real purpose is not to generate ongoing ££, but to reset Meghan's PR image after Spotify came to an end and the other Netflix shows they've produced (Live to Lead(?), Heart of Invictus, Polo etc.) haven't exactly generated loads of views. Maybe this is just a PR exercise to give the impression that she has succeeded in creating a sell-out brand.

@My2cents1975 I agree that because William was so tall he looked much older than he was during that funeral procession and how very young he was is less evident. The pair of them were heartbreaking (I could never comprehend they'd been allowed let alone encouraged to walk) but whatever therapy Harry's had to help him cope, he needs more/different/better.

@Weepixie

I'm quite baffled by your comments towards me. I can only surmise you are a member of this Sussex Squad one hears about or that you have your own personal issues to do with pregnancy. I cannot explain otherwise why my very innocuous comment about Meghan wearing shapewear in her pregnancy would cause your disproportionate reaction. Maybe step back from this particular thread as its clearly getting you all wound up.

A new element to this discussion. Does anyone know if Paula Matanovich (X was Twitter) is reliable? She has spotted that on 22 March, three days before Harry issued his press statement about standing down from Sentebale, Sentebale was registered as a trademark in the US, with the UK-registered limited company Sentebale the trademark owner. x.com/paulamatanovich/status/1908315182805250442?t=ro3rgh_nLf5kO5XMaJzgJA&s=19

Last year, when SC was therefore in the Chair position, the Daily Mail (Richard Eden) reported that H&M had put in a US trademark application for Sentebale, in their name. According to Eden, the application was rejected because the categories were too broad (charitable fundraising, educational events, health and wellbeing support, creative arts).

Matanovich says SC found out and intervened to ensure the registration was made by Sentebale rather than H&M. (She doesn't say how she knows this, but it's plausible.) Could this nail in the coffin for H&M's attempt to monetise Sentebale have been the final straw for H? It fits the entitlement narrative SC outlined to Trevor Phillips. If this is all correct, it will be included in the evidence submitted by SC, and is terrible news for H as it implicates him directly in using the charity for personal commercial purposes. Does anyone understand the CC well enough to know if this is the kind of evidence that would trigger a statutory enquiry?

I had never heard of this Paula person before but a quick glance at her Twitter feed doesn't exactly suggest a serious investigative journalist.

It could be all smoke and mirrors - enough products created for social media purposes and that's it. The trademark is not yet registered. Apparently someone has reported As Ever to the FDA because the ingredient information on the products isn't detailed as it should be. We don't yet know if the products we are told have sold out have reached those who bought them and the courier company is said to be poor. No dates given on when more products will be available and when the global rollout is going to happen.

It doesn't but the Richard Eden article and 22 March registration to Sentebale stand, without her. She is extrapolating from these two facts and the three-day time lag between the successful registration and Harry's resignation statement.It's what happened between H&M's attempt at registration and Sentebale's success that's missing so PM is speculating.

I agree that H should be held accountable for his behavior, but I don't know that he will. The Charity Commission will be looking into trustees, but H is not a trustee, he is a Patron so he will of course have Trustees to blame if the commission finds the former trustees guilty.

IMHO, we a considerable way from the tipping point where that photo won't work, because although H may have been, to quote Mike Tindall, "a bellend", the men-in-grey controlled H's behavior and managed H's public image very very well. The palace created the construct of a "cheeky happy chappy who loves Queen and country. Some laddish behavior included but what fun!"

After H married M, they exited fairly rapidly, so they never cemented a public image of "fun, loving, dynamic duo". Instead, due to the tv shows, interviews and books their established brand is "whining, toxic, negative duo" hence the desperate "joy, joy joy" rebranding that we are witnessing unfold.

Unfortunately for M, rightly or wrongly, the public perceives her as the catalyst for things to go wrong for H, when IMHO, without palace support and PR, H is utterly clueless and useless. It is just M entering the scene and palace support ending happened back-to-back. H's collapse in popularity is tied to his marriage to M for much of the public imagination...so IMHO, accountability will remain a foreign concept to H for a while longer.

PH provided most of capital for their move to the US - he had few expenses as a RF member, His inheritance from Diana was estimated at £10-15 million in 2020, plus he inherited £8 million from the Queen Mother when he turned 40, he received his allowance from Charles (£2 million a year) for 6 months after Megxit (after the Oprah interview) and Charles gave him a one off sum of £4-5 million to started their new life.