Prince Harry is snubbed, alone and utterly irrelevant
MAUREEN CALLAHAN: It’s Royal revenge! Harry snubbed, alone and utterly irrelevant… and our Discount Duchess Meghan seemingly less popular than Lauren Sanchez
Have the Royals finally taken their revenge?
Having borne the vilest of slurs, insults, accusations and betrayals out of Camp Montecito with dignified silence — for years now — it seems they have served up, with quiet elegance, the dish best served cold.
The chill is felt Stateside, trust.
The prodigal Prince Harry, meant to take his victory lap in London as his Invictus Games reach the ten-year mark, entered St. Paul’s alone while his father and brother held events mere miles away.
The royals, it was announced, would not be seeing Harry this trip. Nor would he be welcome to stay in any of the many palaces, castles or cottages in the King’s portfolio.
No: King Charles, currently battling cancer, was too ‘busy’ to carve out even a few moments for his son, instead hosting a garden party at Buckingham Palace.
Of the 30,000 guests invited to that event, Harry did not make the list.
Charles, however, did find time to announce, within hours of Harry landing in London on Monday, that Prince William would be named Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps — Harry’s former regiment, and a role long assumed for him.
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The prodigal Prince Harry, meant to take his victory lap in London as his Invictus Games reach the ten-year mark, entered St. Paul’s alone while his father and brother held events mere miles away.
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Charles, however, did find time to announce, within hours of Harry landing in London on Monday, that Prince William would be named Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps — Harry’s former regiment, and a role long assumed for him.
As for William: He, of course, also didn’t see Harry this week, instead hosting an investiture in Windsor the morning of Harry’s Invictus celebration.
He appears to have made clear his feelings toward Harry, but the stakes are now truly high: Kate Middleton is undergoing chemotherapy for her cancer. The idea that Harry — and, by default, Meghan — could be ever trusted with any information about her or Charles’s health is laughable.
Don’t forget: After Harry made that whirlwind trip to see Charles after his diagnosis was announced in February — granted an audience of less than 30 minutes for over 22 hours in the air — he turned around and gave an interview to ABC News.
Did he go into specifics about Charles’s diagnosis or treatment? No, but probably because Harry is privy to nothing.
That didn’t stop him from talking, or from presuming that such a catastrophic illness meant all would be forgiven.
‘I think any illness, any sickness, brings families together’, Harry told ABC’s Will Reeve days after that briefest of house calls.
‘I’ve got other trips planned that would take me through the UK or back to the UK,’ Harry added, ‘so I’ll stop in and see my family as much as I can.’
How’s that working out, Harry?
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King Charles, currently battling cancer, was too ‘busy’ to carve out even a few moments for his son, instead hosting a garden party at Buckingham Palace.
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Of the 30,000 guests invited to that event, Harry did not make the list.
Recall, too, that a well-sourced report in the UK press promptly speculated that Harry would step back in as a part-time working royal — against the distinct orders of the late Queen — to fill in for Charles and Kate.
That idea was quickly and unequivocally shot down.
No way back, well-placed sources told the Mail.
‘The terms of the [Sandringham] accord were very clear,’ a highly-placed source said, ‘and nothing that has happened recently, including the King’s illness, has changed that.’
Not a single royal — not even his cousin Zara Tindall — showed up to support Harry on Wednesday, or was seen with him during his very brief stint in London.
His wife stayed back in America.
He was not seen with a single friend. What a lonely existence Harry has conjured for himself, an existential hell of his own making.
In fact, the only relatives to support Harry this trip were his mother’s siblings: Diana’s sister Lady Jane Fellowes and her brother Charles — he of the ‘f-you’ eulogy to the royals at Diana’s funeral and currently peddling his memoir — were present at St. Paul’s on Wednesday.
This alliance can only further fracture Harry’s position with the Palace. And without the Palace, he has nothing to offer.
To quote that legendary ‘South Park’ episode — ‘WAAAGH’!
And what does this all mean for Meghan Markle?
Surely she is drawing a ultra-fine, obscenely priced cashmere shawl by Loro Piana or the like over her shoulders, cradling a hot cuppa and wondering what this all bodes for #BrandSussex.
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He was not seen with a single friend. What a lonely existence Harry has conjured for himself, an existential hell of his own making.
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Surely, Meghan is drawing a ultra-fine, obscenely priced cashmere shawl by Loro Piana or the like over her shoulders, cradling a hot cuppa and wondering what this all bodes for #BrandSussex.
How is one meant to merchandise sweetmeats and shower gels without the royal halo?
To credibly sell, as a friend told Meghan’s mouthpiece Omid Scobie last year, ‘Something rooted in her love of details, curating, hosting, life’s simple pleasures, and family’?
The lack of self-awareness is jaw-dropping. It’s terrifying, really, delusions that evoke Grand Guignol, the stuff of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’?
Someday in the not too-distant-future, Meghan risks finding herself rattling around in dilapidated grandeur, mistress of her own ‘Grey Gardens’, muttering about her former glories as a duchess, a basic cable star, and a suitcase girl who suffered on one of America’s most popular game shows.
Perhaps it’s already begun. After all, where was our discount duchess at the Met Gala?
It’s a problem when Lauren Sanchez is seen as classier than you. When Cardi B. is considered a glam addition to the red carpet. When Anna Wintour, a known monarchist, gives her assent to a pornified EmRata and all manner of greased-up, half-naked starlets but not you.
It’s a problem when the majority of celebrities gifted your numbered jars of jam — nestled among bruised lemons, stickers peeling— apparently decline to acknowledge your wares on social media.
But then again, life’s simple pleasures are hard to market when one is otherwise full of complaints and resentment.
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Someday in the not too-distant-future, Meghan risks finding herself rattling around in dilapidated grandeur, mistress of her own ‘Grey Gardens’, muttering about her former glories as a duchess, a basic cable star, and a suitcase girl who suffered on one of America’s most popular game shows. (Above) Meghan Markle’s promotional photo from the TV Series ‘Suits’
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It’s a problem when the majority of celebrities gifted your numbered jars of jam — nestled among bruised lemons, stickers peeling— apparently decline to acknowledge your wares on social media.
After all, is there be a greater representative of family than Ms. Markle, who sat with Oprah — Harry limply next to her — and smugly implied that the royals were racists who didn’t care that she was pregnant and suicidal?
Fear not, world, because delayed podcasts and dreams deferred will not keep Meghan Markle down!
After Harry’s ignominious visit to the UK, she is due to reunite with him in Nigeria on Friday, a three-day itinerary meant to evoke a royal tour.
Surely, this is her moment.
Indeed, after she married Harry — per her claims of a ‘Lion King’ actor’s praise for her — people danced in the streets of South Africa, just as they did when Mandela was freed.
What could possibly go wrong?