“Woke Royals”

Has there ever been a more brutally effective piece of social satire than the South Park episode that mocked Harry and Meghan?

Since it aired in mid-February, the Duchess of Sussex, previously a seemingly ubiquitous and unstoppable cultural phenomenon, has effectively withdrawn from public life. She’s made just one formal appearance – at an awards show, which ended in the farce of disputed paparazzi car chase claims – and has given precisely no interviews.

The couple’s media empire also seems to be imploding. Spotify has axed their $20 million (£15.6 million) podcast deal, with senior exec Bill Simmons ungallantly labelling the pair ‘fucking grifters’.

“This isn’t the first time people have questioned whether Meghan actually speaks to her interviewees,” Cockburn wrote, all of those months ago. “After an episode with Justin Trudeau’s wife Sophie, an old Markle friend from her Suits days in Montreal, it was clear that the conversation was recorded in separate studios, as podcast producer J.P. Davidson tweeted, “Thrilled to finally share that Sophie Grégoire Trudeau was in our studio with producer Will for her interview with Meghan Markle.”

Grifters gonna grift together

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were branded “lazy” and “f–king grifters” by Spotify employees Friday after the podcasting network canned their $20 million deal.

Bill Simmons, the sportscaster who is also head of Spotify’s international sports content, said on his own podcast, “’The f–king grifters.’ That’s the podcast we shoulda launched with them.”

The loss of a deal with Spotify might indicate that their earning power is about to fade

Not since Hollywood star Gywneth Paltrow “consciously uncoupled” from Coldplay singer Chris Martin has a separation been so deliciously dressed up. “The Duke and Duchess of Sussex Part Ways with Spotify” read the reports, announcing that the Duchess’s Archetypes podcast won’t be getting a second season, after all. What Meghan wants is no longer what Meghan gets, it seems.

Perhaps it was by mutual consent but, to me, “part ways” sounds suspiciously like a more gentle way of saying: “You’re fired.”

With festival season just around the corner, it is fitting that Prince Harry’s Worldwide Privacy Tour is coming to a climax. The Duke played to a jam-packed High Court crowd last week. They were keen to hear the latest solipsistic stream-of-unconsciousness of our tormented troubadour.

For two years now, Harry has – sometimes with his wife, sometimes flying solo – bleated, neighed and whinnied in interviews, books, Netflix documentaries and talk shows. He has chased media exposure in a way that made Kim Kardashian look like Greta Garbo. Now, here was the big gig, with the world’s media outside the packed venue and helicopters hovering overhead. But would this be his Glastonbury Main Stage triumph – or his Altamont, the final demise of his credibility?

Often a partner’s most important role is that gentle whisper into the ear – or sometimes a knowing glare, gentle punch in the ribs or harshly honest private conversation ­– insisting: Just stop, now!

Since the beginning of the year, Prince Harry has entered self-destruct mode.

Having thrown virtually every blood relative under the bus and cut himself off from most close friends from his pre-Meghan era, it would seem the only person in the world who can save him from himself is his wife.

Over soon?

Prince Andrew is facing fresh questions over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after emails emerged suggesting he ‘lied’ about it in his BBC Newsnight interview.

A message written by the late billionaire paedophile and released as part of a court case in the US show he was presenting Andrew, 63, as a potential investor in 2011, despite the royal claiming to have ended all contact in 2010.

It’s official that the duke and duchess of Sussex have exhausted the American public. They are now finding themselves embroiled in federal court here after the Heritage Foundation sued the U.S. government for access to the duke’s visa application, which they suspect was given preferential treatment despite Harry’s admission to breaking U.S. drug laws.

If Harry was smart he’d ditch Meggie & use this as an excuse to head back to England.

The Joe Biden administration has been accused of “stonewalling” a legal bid to uncover details of Prince Harry’s US visa application using Freedom of Information laws.

A request to have the application fast-tracked on the grounds of exceptional public interest has been turned down, which has been described as an “outrageous” decision by the Washington-based think-tank pursuing the case.

Hope for Harry? – Prince Harry has ‘finally woken up to the truth’ about Meghan, royal expert says

London’s police are not simply available for private hire

Today, Prince Harry lost a court case. If the law of averages is to be believed, he has involved himself in so many that it was inevitable that at least one was not going to go his way. Still, this particular defeat is likely to be difficult for the Duke of Sussex to take, as it involves one of his most cherished concerns; that of his personal security. The High Court has ruled that the British Home Office’s decision that Harry will not be allowed to pay the police to protect him when he is in the United Kingdom is fair and legal. The Home Office had argued that it would be setting a dangerous precedent if the Duke was to be allowed to rent serving police officers, as if they were private security contractors, and a judge agreed with them.

Harry and Meghan’s “near-catastrophic car chase” happened because they were too cheap to pay for a hotel, sources have revealed.

The entitled couple allegedly demanded the Carlyle — the late Princess Diana’s favorite hotel — give them a discounted room for their New York City visit this week.

Royal moochers.

It’s a car chase that’s turned into a public relations car crash.

Friends of the British Royal Family are reportedly mocking Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s “unraveling” claim that they were caught up in a “near-catastrophic” car chase on Tuesday night.

The Sussexes’ spokesperson released a statement saying the couple was hounded by “a ring of highly aggressive paparazzi” after they left the Women of Vision awards in Manhattan, resulting in a “relentless pursuit” with “multiple near collisions” that lasted more than 2 hours.

I hope this is the beginning of the end. I can’t think of two more unjustifiably entitled individuals.

Two unwelcome imports arrived in New York this week. You may have heard about Harry and Meghan’s big night in the city.

Accounts of their time here differ.

According to the couple themselves they suffered the ordeal of a two-hour, “near-catastrophic” car-chase with paparazzi tailing them all the way.

They have no shame.

The Duke and Duchess of Exaggeration are at it again. They simply cannot stay out of the limelight for long because they value their privacy (or something). Meghan Markle was accused during the coronation of calling paparazzi to take photos of her while she was hiking. There doesn’t seem to be any other explanation for how paparazzi would show up in exactly the right place on a deserted California hiking trail to catch the complaining Duchess mid-hike. American magazines aren’t so interested in the Harkles (as they’re called by some) that they are stalking them, are they? Or is it more likely that the attention-starved woman who didn’t get an invite to the coronation wanted to make sure she wasn’t forgotten?