Harry and Meghan are being upbraided for living a jet-setting multi-millionaire lifestyle at odds with their climate activism and “obscene” self-pitying amid a cost-of-living crisis for ordinary Britons following the release of their tearful Netflix docu-series.
The British prince and the American actress, formally the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, presented themselves as star-crossed young lovers — both were well into their thirties when they wed, with Meghan having previously married and divorced an older film producer — under relentless attack by a ravenous media while the monarchy as an institution did nothing to protect them, with various woke academics appearing to disparage Britain as a racist colonial oppressor in order to bolster this narrative.
This has received substantial pushback in the British press, with it being suggested in The Times, Britain’s de facto newspaper of record, that Harry has contracted a kind of California syndrome.
“[Harry] has complained about the damage ‘our’ way of life is having on the world, then hopped on a private jet to a polo match. He has swapped a life of privilege, duty and the royal train, for leisure, polo and private jets, and is paying for the latter by complaining bitterly about the former,” read an excerpt from a longer opinion piece quoted in the newspaper’s live coverage of the docu-series, dubbing the fifth in line to the British throne “the Prince of Montecito” after the elite celebrity enclave where he now resides.
The Telegraph, a broadsheet newspaper close to Britain’s governing class, spotlighted an article outright denouncing the self-pitying tone of the Netflix series as “obscene” at a time when normal people are being crushed by an energy and cost of living crisis.
“While millions of the Duke’s compatriots panic about paying their bills, he and his wife are on TV, moaning about how hard it is to be rich, famous and Royal,” suggested its writer, sarcastically suggesting that “the rest of us can only imagine how terrifying it must have been when, as the Duke said to Oprah Winfrey last year, ‘My family literally cut me off financially’ – forcing him to fall back on his estimated £10m inheritance from his mother.”
Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson struck a similar tone, describing the Netflix product as a “vulture-on-the-wall docu-series” and accusing the Sussexes of “making a living from monetising the legend of Diana,” repeatedly compared to Meghan by Harry.
“A devout monarchist, Diana would be appalled at the damage her younger boy is doing to his big brother, her darling ‘Wills’, via the institution he will one day lead,” Pearson claimed.
The Sun, meanwhile, highlighted apparent inconsistencies in the couple’s “love story”, with their account of how they first met seemingly at odds with their earlier tales of having been set up on a blind date.
All such criticism may be used by the woke couple as merely further evidence that the press and social media users are out to get them, however, with their partisans — mostly leftists who would happily abolish the monarchy and likely have no time for the Sussexes if they were not actively undermining it — likely to lap up this narrative without considering whether the criticism might have some substance.