John Sturgis

The Disneyfication of Prince Harry

Has his narrative been shaped by his favourite films?

  • From Spectator Life
Harry and Meghan at the premiere of The Lion King in July 2019 [Getty Images]

After Prince Harry’s first date with the future Duchess of Sussex, he repaired to a friend’s house off the King’s Road. ‘Out came the tequila,’ he recalls in his much-discussed autobiography, Spare. ‘Out came the weed. We drank and smoked and watched… Inside Out.’

Meghan, however, interrupted his stoned reverie by Facetiming him, and immediately asked: ‘Are you watching cartoons?’ Harry replied: ‘No. I mean, yeah. It’s… Inside Out.’ It was, he recalls, ‘good weed, dude’. The quality of the Disney film, he doesn’t mention – though his pointed double use of ellipses around its title suggests it perhaps has some significance in relation to this new girlfriend.

Three years later, in July 2019, by now not just an item but married, the couple enjoyed a high-profile date night at the London premiere for the relaunched stage version of The Lion King, sharing the leopard-spotted yellow carpet with Beyoncé, Jay-Z and the like.

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