Prince Harry’s podcasts, scripted and unscripted Netflix series, and now his books

Prince Harry appeared to be an enlightened man, in the sense that some of his burdens had been lifted, as he dutifully appeared in the low-key and charming Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace in early July to unveil with his brother William the sculpture of their mother by Ian Rank. Broadley on the occasion of what would have been his sixtieth birthday. It was a much anticipated event in London, not least because of the perceived and real “feud” between the brothers, but it actually went well. The men rallied around, removed the green silk shroud of their mother’s somewhat manly portrayal, had a moment with some of their parents Spencer, a little refreshment was handed out, and that’s it.

Harry’s face on July 1 was certainly no joke, but, as pictured above, he wasn’t afraid to leave what we might describe as a hallmark of his inner turmoil for a bit of frolic. His appearance was that of a man who had freed himself or had been freed. Certainly not without worry, but without something. Something like laughing.

There was a predictable mood in the British press when he appeared in England for the event – whatever Harry does or doesn’t do now, it doesn’t matter whether he smiles or not, notifies it, greets it or doesn’t. do not, in the definition has an element of perceived shamelessness because it is he who is the author. As he has already written so much shamelessness. Specifically, surrounding Harry’s appearance in early July, the chatter was about the possibilities and the impossibilities of “repairing” the “breach” between the brothers caused by the events since November 2019, when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle began their extraordinary estrangement from their royal life by withdrawing to Canada, and caused by the years that have immediately preceding this, the clearly failed inclusion of Meghan Markle in the royal family after her marriage to Harry in 2018.

However she is portrayed in the British press – the former actress, philanthropist and / or wicked femme fatale of Bond-villian son stealer, or sometimes all three at the same time – Meghan Markle is certainly the architect of her own evasion of his duties to the Crown. She came, she saw, she did a minimum of handshakes and smiles, and she went out, going back to her hometown. She took Harry and their son with her.

The bigger blows of Harry and Meghan Markle’s official exit from royal life have had long and direct ramifications in several spheres of British public life – first, in a royal precedent, as members of the royal family have so rarely left the monarch in this way, secondly, in the military, where Harry’s many sponsorships and his own regiments had him as ceremonial chief, and not least, in dozens of civilian sponsorships and philanthropic efforts run by the royal family both in public and in private.

This phase of Harry’s “kick”, dated from the couple’s departure for British Columbia in November 2019 until CBS / Oprah aired in March 2021, was carried out in a great rush because, despite the fact that ‘he’s been a working royal his entire life, Harry operated with a surprisingly high level of naivety about the institution he was raised in and of which he was an integral part. He was learning its intricacies even as he struggled to deconstruct his role in it.

Likewise, Meghan Markle, whose increasingly precarious mental state was fundamentally the agent of these changes, certainly could not be relied on to understand or even see an effect, big or small, that their move would have on the monarchy. or on the family inside. It’s fair to assume that Ms Markle nominally took care of her husband’s family and business – she certainly seemed to study hard and apply herself early on after the wedding.

But whether Meghan Markle cared about what she did or who she might have hurt is a question still hotly debated in London by the royal family, their high courtiers and all their columnists. The evidence, as it emerges from his one-sided actions in physically leaving the country – effectively refusing to address his in-laws and leaving Harry to pay the price – points in the opposite direction. Third and finally, Ms Markle’s tenure in the royal family has come under scrutiny. Specifically, the palace’s trusted communications courtier Jason Knauf began to receive reports of Meghan Markle’s mistreatment of Kensington Palace staff – this was at a time when she and Harry were still living at the palace. from Kensington and still shared staff with William and Kate.

According to Markle’s account of that time in England, as she aired it to Oprah Winfrey, she wasn’t in a position to care about the Queen, Charles, William, Kate or of everything they have done or performed.

It has been both surprisingly and unsurprisingly intimate, or as intimate as the televised encounters with Oprah Winfrey and produced by Oprah Winfrey can be, since the interview aired by Oprah Winfrey / CBS on March 7. Soon Harry and Ms Winfrey began releasing their co-produced mental health series on Apple TV “The Me You Can’t See,” which airs ties to Meghan and Harry’s confessional interview on CBS. The guideline in business and in the Hollywood appeal of old school big and small screens is Ms. Winfrey. According to Ms. Winfrey in the second installment of the Apple series, released on Thursday, May 27, she and Harry have been in the metaphorical kitchen of the producer preparing these Apple shows since mid-2019, while Harry and Meghan Markle were still working at the heart of the ‘action. royals.

Let’s turn to Harry and Meghan Markle’s burgeoning entertainment empire and its many products, in terms of who knew what and when, in 2019, when the Apple TV shows we are seeing now were being designed and discussed, no one in the line. Court of St. James, with the exception of Harry and Ms Markle, knew that at the time the couple had entered into a production deal with Ms Winfrey. It adds a bit of financial acceleration from the engine room to the somewhat inexplicable speed of the couple’s subsequent exit from the monarchy, first in Canada, at Thanksgiving 2019, then after a few months and the initial bombshell in January 2020. , their ultimate release in March of last year. In purely Hollywood terms: they already had a pretty solid iron in Los Angeles, a production deal with Apple and Oprah.

The pandemic and its many effects on public life have understandably put a damper on program production in Harry and Meghan Markle’s Netflix deal. To their credit, they hired both scripted and unscripted content managers, and an audio producer to help them manage their Spotify engagements, in addition to signing a top-notch writer at the Los Angeles Times for Harry’s debut book, JR. Moehringer.

Ultimately, the reason Harry seemed happy in early July when his mother’s statue was unveiled in the Sunken Garden is because, as he himself said in a recent public appearance, he saw the life his mother wanted for him. And for his brother.