As ever and PR disasters continued

[AtIusvue]

So Meghan lost her fathers number but is ringing round hospitals and will send a handwritten note, as per Sussex sources speaking through the Sun, the Telegraph and the Times.

I mean I have no idea, how it works with PR for very famous people, but surely there are scenarios they prep for?

Her dad is in his 80s, severely obese and has suffered ill health for years. You would think, there would be protocol in what to do should the worst happen.

That would include having up to date contact info. This isn’t something Meg would need to have/get involved with if she’s estranged, but surely ‘The Office of the DDOS’ would. Then engage in their set plan- whether that’s a public statement that this is a private affair or that contact has been made through the proper channels.

Whatever this is, it isn’t professional-it’s complete chaos.

I think an emerging and intractable problem for both Harry and Meghan is that they are just so bloody boring, droning on about compassion and impact and learnings and secoority and other tedious drivel.

We’ve heard it all before, so very many times, and god don’t they just love the sound of their own voices.

There would have to be some real juice to an interview now for most people to want to listen - I’m talking weapons-grade tale-telling of inappropriate behaviour type stuff - and then they’d be regarded as just another quasi-royal freak show, à la Andrew M-W. (They’re already sailing close to the wind.)

And I can’t see Invictus working out in Birmingham, not with the Israeli IDF involved (let alone that team’s reported Russian-Israeli oligarch funder). I suppose at least shitshows are vaguely interesting.

Harry and Meghan is that they are just so bloody boring, droning on about compassion and impact and learnings

And especially as most of it is 'do as I say, not as I do'

and then they’d be regarded as just another quasi-royal freak show, à la Andrew M-W

This is what I was trying to badly articulate earlier in the thread. Despite all that AMW has done, and the extent to which the RF have enabled him, the RF keeps going.
Whilst a tell-all book might have some initial value the reality is whatever is told will be a storm in a teacup. The institution will continue, because it is bigger than the sum of it's parts- all the current RF are just actors in a role, the titles have proceeded them and will outlive them.

I think the more sensible members of the RF realise that it's not about their individual skills, qualifications or personalities. And distinguish between their public role and private life and find a boundary they can.live with.

After all, Prince Philip was born into a deposed RF (Greece) and closely related to the Russian RF (mostly killed) and various German princelings (deposed 1918). So he has a pretty good understanding that you couldn't rely on the institution - or individual members of it - surviving.

That didn’t take long:

• meg n Harry werent happy with Holts work
• he had visa issues

https://archive.ph/LRtd6

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-15420435/Can-Harry-Meghans-beloved-Archewell-charity-survive.html

@Baital but I don't think H&M do. They seem to think that are bigger than the monarchy (or at least they did) and that they can seriously harm/bring it down. A monarchy is not going to be damaged by the hurty feelings of the spare.

I can't read the link, but it can't be everyone else's fault.

I’m getting the feeling that Holt encouraged them.

I don’t get how they are running out of money. Didn’t they get 100 million of Netflix and Spotify. How is it possible to spend that much money? I am not a business person so don’t understand these things.

It's very rarely the whole lot upfront. Deals tend to be structured so that the money pays out in tranches over a period of time - and subject to certain conditions being met. E.g. you produce X volume and type of content in year 1 and we pay X amount.

I think it's also been said that these types of media deals can also be all-in on costs. Meaning that the person doing the work is responsible for paying the costs out of the cash they get. E.g. We'll pay you X in year 1 if you meet the content conditions, and we'll pay so much of it to you upfront as you need to pay for the studio, production staff, researchers and so on.

Click on the archive link .

Sorry - pressed post too soon!

If I'm right (entirely possible I'm not, as it's not something I've ever done!) then it means that the DDoS didn't get $100m upfront (or whatever the headline deal figure was).

Also worth factoring in whether they met the content conditions or not - I'd expect both Netflix and Spotify to have fairly stringent targets and clear expectation setting in terms of not getting all of the $$$ if you don't produce enough work.

That's not how it works.

Even assuming the NF deal ever had that face value, which I doubt, it's not like Ted Sarandos will have signed the whole amount over in one go. They didn't get to be the world's foremost streamer by being that stupid!

It will have been a production deal, with all sorts of conditions attached and expenses to be paid. More realistic estimates I've seen suggested that after all costs and taxes etc were paid, the Sussexes would have netted somewhere in the low millions. A huge amount by most people standards, but most people don't live in mansions in Montecito.

Anyway, the NF deal is over in all but name, and Spotify dumped them. So other than passive income through investments, where is their money going to come from going forward?

What happened to Lemonada ?

Yes, that's where the wheels started to come off - when it became apparent that there wasn't a smoking gun. That they were good at implying Dark Things being done to them, but it came down to one less sausage, and unspecified remarks showing unconscious bias.

I think H and M were swept along with the “ success” of their Netflix series and assumed they would be able to continue spilling Royal titbits . I don’t think it occurred to H that they would be so firmly cut off therefore no ongoing grievances to air .
I have no idea whether or not he is still close to Eugenie but I am sure she ( and Beatrice) will want to stay on the right side of William.

re the James Holt announcement, it was only a matter of days ago that they announced there would be some “junior admin staff” made redundant as part of the restructure of Archewell but the “core team are still in place”. And now it transpires that 4 out of 5 are gone and the only one remaining is a consultant who also works for a couple of other businesses.

Whilst I’ll never now be shocked at how much they lie, it’s unbelievable that they would come out with a lie like this that they surely must realise is going to be absolutely decimated in a matter of days. Why would they do it? It makes them look SO foolish, and is yet another example of them refusing to listen to PR advice, which surely must be telling them to come clean up front but position this with as much positivity as possible, rather than bullshit and obfuscate and get made to look like a total idiot within a matter of days. Every single thing they do or say digs them deeper into the hole they’re in.

So Liam Maguire becomes their lead publicist now?

Fascinating chap.

In an article written in September 2015 headlined 'the flack who became a hack', Mr Maguire said he became a freelance journalist because he got tired of being asked to 'eat the client's cp with a smile'. So far so charming...

He said he had been 'suckling from the bullst boob for nearly a decade', describing himself as a 'peddler of puff' having 'hawked cp written by committees destined to be read by nobody'.

Is this the kind of tone H&M are really aiming for?

Before working for H, he was at Bell Pottinger, a now-defunct company which collapsed in 2017 after having run a 'racially divisive' campaign in South Africa.

Is this the kind of profile H&M want?

A Netflix representative denied the widely reported figure of $100 million for the Sussexes’ deal in the January 2025 Vanity Fair article. The representative stated that the reported figure was "not correct".

In any event, it’s like the “record deals” given to winning X-Factor contestants by Simon Cowell. It wasn’t a huge cash payment to them - rather there would have been a cash advance, and a commitment from Netflix to fund the production and marketing costs of a number of a number of projects over the 5-year term of the agreement.

So what ever the value of the contract was, a large part of it would have been spent paying the pre-production, production and post-production costs of the TV series the couple produced (their documentary series, Heart of Invictus, With Love, Meghan etc).

That’s quite funny @hepsitemiz- he’s obviously decided he’s quite happy having gone back to suckling from the bullshit boob and eating the client’s crap with a smile. I guess if it pays enough eh!

Well, he sounds charming !!! However it fits with the aggressive reactions from camp Sussex around Meghan’s father’s limb amputation.

James Holt supposedly resigned so he could join his family in the UK, ie couldn’t do HIS job remotely from the UK, but Liam Maguire IS able to do his job remotely from Cornwall. The lies don’t stack up again.

Even the formerly supportive Guardian is now finding Meg’s stuff boring.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/dec/30/and-just-like-that-alls-fair-floating-poo-its-the-tv-letdowns-of-the-year

(See number six, about half way down.)

‘Given the extent to which she grinds the gears of the nation’s performatively enraged, right-wing culture warriors, it’s almost tempting to admire the Duchess of Sussex’s various televised ventures into twee homemaking as deliberate provocations. But then you watch them and are forced to admit that actually, in this one instance, they might have a point. It’s like watching the Liberty catalogue come to life before your horrified eyes; a wine o’clock poster with delusions of grandeur; a parade of snoozing dogs, humming beehives, Hallmark platitudes and pointless crafting “hacks” you’ll forget instantly. All underpinned by vast, largely unearned wealth. Ugh.’

Ugh indeed.

The issue is IMO is that Meghan still thinks along the lines of when she was 6th on the call sheet on Suits and she was promoting herself/minor level PR agencies.

When you're at that level puffing up your CV with white lies and fudging the truth don't matter because you're not important enough for people to fact check you.

That's not the case now - and she seems to struggle with the fact that people will check it.

I really hope they don't split up and that they are happy, but they're their own worst enemy and just make things so much harder for themselves.

I think Harry is waiting for Charles to pop his clogs before he gets the big guns out.

The fact he even called his own book Spare shows that it utterly consumes his mind and his life. The fact they’ve so royally mucked up everything they have done outside the RF will just make his vengeance worse. Had they forged their own path effectively, no one would compare and everyone would be happy for them. Tbh I forget they are even brothers now.

Personally I think it’s quite fitting that the only publicist they’ve ended up with sounds like an angry sweary man who sits behind a keyboard firing out angry sweary messages.

I don't think H has any big guns. Once his brother is King it is game over. No access to royal estates, no grey men to phone asking for money. Honestly, what did he think the future would look like?

Got to agree with this. Harry only has vitriol and rehearsed platitudes in his tank, and most people are bored with his whinging.

I’ve moved past ‘this shitshow is grimly fascinating’ to ‘this is getting tedious now’.