Prince harry

Prince Harry presiding over ‘toxic boys’ club,’ former employees claim

Steerpike is fond of a periodical check-in with modern Renaissance men. And they don’t come much more multi-talented than Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Mr. Meghan Markle, formerly HRH. Following his departure from official royal duties, the people’s prince has kept busy by locking himself into lucrative positions at some of the planet’s most prestigious companies. His multiple deals — Netflix and Spotify to name two — were not uncommon for an up-and-coming sleb, but the most bizarre of his roles was joining the ‘mental fitness’ start-up BetterUp as ‘chief impact officer.’ Oh, how we smirked, with the occasional eye roll, firm in the belief that he’d be back in

Prince Harry should stop lecturing Americans

Washington, DC Prince Harry is once again mouthing off about American politics despite a rudimentary understanding – at best – of our founding principles. The pampered Brit delivered a speech at the United Nations on Monday insisting that we are witnessing a ‘rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States’. Prince Harry, who only lives here because his wife dreams of doing animated voiceovers for Netflix, routinely opines on our constitution with all of the British pomposity that led to the Revolutionary War. Newsflash: Americans do not like it when foreigners tell us what to do or how we should feel, and yet Prince Harry (do I even have to

Does Meghan Markle know what ‘guttural’ means?

When the Duke of Sussex heard about the Supreme Court judgment revoking the ruling in Roe vs Wade, ‘His reaction last week was guttural, like mine,’ said his wife Meghan Markle. ‘Men need to be vocal in this moment,’ she told Vogue magazine. If we are to take her at her word, the Duchess of Sussex was saying that Prince Harry vocalised his reaction by growling. This sounds quite unlikely. But she added that her reaction was the same. It is impossible not to wonder whether she meant that theirs was a gut reaction. Of course one can say gut reaction, but it is impossible to say a reaction is

You can make anything up about the royal family and it will be printed as fact

There are quite a few things that Tina Brown doesn’t know: what ‘jejune’ means; when Louis XIV came to the throne; what the passive voice in prose is (not ‘recollections may vary’); what members of the aristocracy are called (Lady Romsey becomes Lady Penelope Romsey) or what members of the royal family are called (the ‘Dowager Duchess of Gloucestershire’ puts in an appearance).Another thing she doesn’t know (which she shares with other authors of works in this obscenely overstuffed genre) is what’s been going on between members of the royal family in the period between the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and the death of the Duke of Edinburgh

Prince William is turning into his brother

For a tour that should have been an unmitigated success, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s visit to the Caribbean has ended up being surprisingly controversial, described as nothing less than ‘a PR disaster’. Even if some of the negative coverage feels confected, especially in light of the exploits of Prince Andrew and Prince Harry, it seems extraordinary that the supposed outrage could not have been anticipated. It has been an inauspicious curtain-raiser to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June: from the unfortunate images of the Duke and Duchess shaking hands with Jamaican children through a chain-link fence to the protests that have greeted their progress from local republicans. There is a sense

Prince Harry’s ‘Americanisms’ are no such thing

Ever since Prince Harry moved to Los Angeles, royal commentators with an interest in the English language have been watching what he says. He may have walked the walk but has he also started to talk the talk? In October 2020, the Mail ran a piece headed ‘Prince Harry calls opening the bonnet ‘popping the hood’ as he picks up Americanisms after seven months in US with Meghan Markle’. In May 2021, the Express announced ‘Prince Harry swaps Queen’s English for Americanisms in desperate bid to “be liked”‘, gasping that ‘Prince Harry has dropped elements of his cut-glass English accent in favour of Americanisms’. Just last week, as Harry spoke about

The Steerpike Awards of 2021

Well 2021 is at an end and what a hell of a year it’s been. There were laughs, tears, shock, disgust and despair – and that was just the reaction to footage of Matt Hancock’s video nasty. The past twelve months have seen various ups and downs in Britain and abroad, ranging from the highlights of the vaccine rollout and England’s Euro run to low points like the Capitol coup, the Afghanistan debacle and various pandemic pitfalls. And Mr S has been there throughout it all to chart the gossip, drama, high politics and low shenanigans. Tony Benn once sniffed that it was ‘issues, not personalities’ that mattered; Steerpike holds that the inverse is true when

It’s Harry, not Meghan, who’s the real problem

Who or what drove Harry and Meghan to leave the royal bosom for the land of slebs on the other side of the Atlantic? That’s one of the central questions of a new two-part documentary, The Princes and the Press, that aired on the BBC last night. The obvious suspect is the dreaded British media — barging, intrusive, xenophobic — riddled with prejudice, we’re told, against a mixed-race American in the monarchy. But the jostling between royal households seems equally responsible. After the early days of Hazza and Megz, a clear jealousy from some of William and Kate’s people began to seep into the media. The younger brother and his

Prince Harry declares war on disinformation

Democracy is in crisis, faith in institutions is at an all-time low. The public’s trust in our leaders has collapsed; cynicism is all around. Which pillar of integrity can save us from the morass and rescue our crumbling polity? Step forward erstwhile aristo Prince Harry, the hereditary hedonist reborn as a fearless fighter of fake news. Since joining the beautiful people in LA eighteen months ago, the exiled royal has gone round collecting pseudo-jobs like a less employable George Osborne. Eco-warrior, occasional podcaster, ethical banker and interminable speech-giver: there are many hats now worn by the dilettante Duke. And today it was the turn of Commissar Harry to adopt his Ushanka in his role

Harry and Meghan, the term ‘Megxit’ isn’t sexist

Just when you thought Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s collective victim complex couldn’t get any more vast and cavernous, up they pop again to make clear, in pained tones, just how persecuted this multimillionaire formerly royal couple believe themselves to be. We already knew that their allies think ‘Megxit’ was all about racism. That their departure from the monarchy, freeing them up to cut lucrative deals in the United States, was forced by their supposedly racist treatment by the tabloids. Now we learn it was also all about misogyny, and that the term ‘Megxit’ is itself shot through with hatred for the Duchess of Sussex. Speaking this week on an online

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Prince Harry: I predicted the Capitol coup

Prince Harry is a man of many talents. He’s an eco-obsessed ethical banker whose firm invests in the oil and gas industry. He’s an audiobook entrepreneur with a company that doesn’t produce any content. And he’s a privacy-obsessed recluse, except for when he’s making yet another public speech on his chosen issue of the day. But among his many gifts is something hitherto unknown: it appears that Harry is something of a psychic.  For today the exiled royal has revealed that he predicted the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building. Speaking at a panel on misinformation – a subject close to Harry’s heart – the erstwhile aristo claimed that he presciently predicted the

Meghan and Harry pledge to save the world

In Glasgow the green games are well underway, with a roll call of world leaders reading from the COPacabana hymn sheet to a genuflecting press corps. British premier Boris Johnson claims it’s ‘one minute to midnight,’ Prince Charles believes ‘time has literally run out’ while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres argues ‘we are digging our own graves.’ Cheery stuff.  And where there’s media, there’s celebrity too, with every camera-loving eco-warrior quick to jet in. Jeff Bezos eulogised about his, er, rocket trip to space with star turns also provided by yacht-loving Leonardo Di Caprio and the New York-residing SNP supporter Brian Cox. Angry adolescent Greta Thunberg meanwhile had to make do with an unwashed mob outside. But of course,

My brush with a royal literary crisis

The past week has seen another media splash about the self-exiled Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Following the recent ruckus over the statue of Princess Diana, the latest crisis to come off the royal conveyor belt was news that the Duke has written what his publishers sedately describe as a ‘literary memoir’. Cue general outrage. I was duly put to work by a weekend newspaper on an article that was expected to follow the anti-Harry orthodoxy but somehow it wandered off course. None of us has all the facts about why he and his family have moved to California, yet that hasn’t stopped pro- and anti-Sussex camps mobilising with a

Prince Harry could learn from Kate Middleton’s mental health work

I wonder if the royal family realise how lucky they are to have Kate? She may have been born a commoner, but she is proving herself to be the best asset the Firm have. As naff as this sounds, she comes across as actually caring and wanting to use her position of power and influence to do some good which is quite refreshing in today’s self-obsessed, navel-gazing world where those in the public eye only seem to care if there’s a long-lens camera trained on them while they do their good deeds. Along with William she has championed causes such as mental health which were profoundly uncool when they first

Spare us Prince Harry’s ‘literary memoir’

However you look at it, ‘freedom day’ turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. So thank goodness for Prince Harry who managed to squeeze in some good news to cheer us all up. His formerly-royal highness is to publish his memoirs. It’ll be an ‘intimate and heartfelt’ account no less, written, he tells us, ‘not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become.’ I can’t be the only one barely able to contain my excitement. One tantalising question is what more Harry still has to reveal. Having spent a tempestuous couple of years desperately seeking privacy in between pouring his heart out

The problem with Prince Harry’s mental health drive

Has Prince Harry ever had a thought and not made it public? Are there feelings or emotions he has experienced but kept to himself? The latest episode of The Me You Can’t See, the Duke’s documentary series exploring mental health and emotional well-being, aired this week. Loyal viewers were rewarded with a bonus ‘town hall conversation’ show in which Harry and his co-host and producer, Oprah Winfrey, were reunited with advisors and participants from the series.  The premise of the programmes, drummed home once again in the town hall special, is that having ‘a me we can’t see’ is bad for our mental health. Full emotional disclosure is open, honest,

Is Sweden ready for a woke monarchy?

Stockholm The House of Sussex may have flopped in Britain, but elsewhere it does seem to be inspiring others. Here in Stockholm a trendy podcast Värvet (The Task), known for host Kristoffer Triumf’s in-depth interviews with media and entertainment figures, had a surprise guest recently: Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden. He was not so gauche as to attack the constitution or to drop any Prince Harry-style bombs, but his presence on a podcast was seen as the latest part of a royal awokening. Even in exile, Harry has created an interesting challenge for the world’s monarchies. They can be regarded as old-fashioned — normally aligned with the state religion

We’ve become a nation of armchair psychiatrists

Are we becoming a nation of amateur psychoanalysts and armchair psychiatrists? We all speak the language of therapy and are quick to diagnose and label friends, strangers and even loved ones. Prince Harry does it to his wife Meghan Markle in a forthcoming five-part series on mental health for Apple TV that he’s co-produced with Oprah Winfrey. Discussing his wife’s suicidal state of mind during her pregnancy Prince Harry offers this diagnosis: ‘The thing that stopped her from seeing it through was how unfair it would be on me after everything that had happened to my mum, and now to be put in the position of losing another woman in

A Roman solution to Prince Charles’s ‘Harry problem’

Charles, Prince of Wales, is having a little trouble with his son Harry. Romans knew about difficult offspring. They told a story of a father who discovered his son was plotting against his life. Unable to believe a son would commit such an outrage, he received confirmation on oath from his wife that he was their son, and then summoned him to a meeting. There he gave him a sword and told him to cut his father’s throat. The son, horrified by his father’s reaction, threw it away, saying: ‘I ask only that you should not think my love for you to be of little value because it arises from

What is the point of Meghan Markle’s new children’s book?

Meghan Markle has written a book for children. Of course she has. There is no celeb, no matter how busy, who doesn’t have a children’s book in them, because children’s books, you might think if you didn’t know better, don’t need plot or character or much in the way of style. It was either that, or a cookbook. The Bench, for that is the name, is based apparently on a poem Meghan wrote for her husband for father’s day, a month after little Archie was born. Because that’s what you do with a small baby, isn’t it… you write a poem. It’s short, it would seem, but then William Nicholson’s