Prince harry

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

How Prince Harry became celebrity frontman for a very questionable industry

Prince Harry is now chief impact officer for BetterUp, a Californian corporate consultancy whose ‘mission’ is to sell online life coaching with — in his words, — ‘innovation, impact and integrity’. Harry may not realise it, but he is the latest celebrity frontman for the rapidly growing, broadly unregulated and frequently dubious corporate ‘coaching’ industry. And you might not realise it, but Harry, Duke of Malibu is your future, because California’s today is America’s tomorrow and Britain’s next week. BetterUp is one of a group of Californian companies on the growing, corporate edge of life coaching. Its competitors have names like Workbot, Hone and Clear Review and they all claim

Prince Harry’s new job is hardly ‘public service’

At the tender age of 36, Prince Harry has got his first job since leaving the royal family. Congratulations to him. As most teenagers will know it is both a liberating and formative experience. Paper boy, shopfloor dogsbody, chief impact officer – the roles can be unglamorous, but they’re almost always worth it. Harry’s big post-Megxit break into the world of work is everything we could have expected. He will be working as something called a ‘chief impact officer’ at a Silicon Valley firm called BetterUp, which offers professional-development and mental-health coaching to businesses and their employees. Going by BetterUp’s website, it seems to peddle therapeutic burble to firms with

Steerpike

Prince Harry gets his second job in 24 hours

President Biden’s stimulus splurge is clearly working wonders, given the new found desire of American companies to stuff dollars into Prince Harry’s pockets. Following the news yesterday that the exiled royal would be joining billion dollar tech start up BetterUp, America’s answer to George Osborne has now bagged himself a second gig alongside existing million dollar content deals with Netflix and Spotify. The new role will be at international nonprofit the Aspen Institute, where he will serve on the Orwell-esque ‘Commission on Information Disorder’. Prince Harry – or should we call him Commissioner Harry – will join 14 others and three co-chairs to hold a six-month study on how inaccurate information spreads across the country. In a

Prince Harry gets a job in Silicon Valley

Where does one find freedom these days? A billion dollar Silicon Valley tech company now appears to be the answer. Mr S was delighted to read in the Wall Street Journal this afternoon that Prince Harry, 36, will be taking up his first formal job post-Megxit as the chief impact officer at tech start up BetterUp in California.  The Duke of Sussex will be providing ‘proactive coaching’ for personal development, increased awareness and ‘an all-round better life’ at the startup which provides professional coaching, mental health advice and ‘immersive learning.’  BetterUp was founded in 2013 and recently raised $125m from international investors to fund expansion which valued the company at $1.7bn. Heraldic symbols and royal lions out, tech unicorns in

I was Oprah Winfrey’s hero

Gstaad Some of you may have noticed that I have not commented at all about the ongoing soap opera and latest brouhaha concerning the halfwit and Meghan Macbeth. That’s because I decided long ago that the best way to counter their publicity machine is never to mention them. But I’ve also done something that most of the hacks writing about the couple have not: I’ve been a guest on Oprah’s show twice, on one occasion by my little old self for a whole hour. Although wince-inducing, squirming, cringeworthy and gushing, The Oprah Show always has a theme and, more importantly, a hook. The hook is what will make people’s ears

William has revealed the princes’ pain

The institution waited two days before responding to the Oprah interview with a statement that acknowledged the allegations around race were concerning, but it omitted any condemnation of racism. In just twelve seconds this morning, Prince William tackled the central charge head on.  The brothers are riven, in their trenches and communicating via chat show hosts and off the record briefings to newspapers TV doorstepping — shouting a question at someone without prior agreement while armed with a camera and microphone — can be a fruitless task. Doing it when the target is a royal is a soulless endeavour. This morning, at a school in east London, fortune favoured the

Charles Moore

So did Harry and Meghan get married in their ‘backyard’?

I have been slow in the uptake. When I saw the Duchess of Sussex complain in her interview clips about how her son had not been given a title and then move on to the alleged racism of an alleged speculation by an unnamed but probably royal person about the possible skin colour of the child she was expecting, I did not immediately see the connection. The full interview makes it clear. Meghan is saying that Archie was not allowed to be a prince because of his skin colour. Oprah: ‘Do you think it’s because of his race?’ Meghan: ‘We have in tandem the conversation of “He won’t be given

Freddy Gray

Battle royal: Harry and Meghan’s modern brand of revenge

Remember the Heads Together campaign? It was back in 2017. Prince William, his wife Kate and his brother Prince Harry, who’d recently begun dating a conspicuously woke actress called Meghan Markle, launched a charitable endeavour to raise awareness about mental health. The princes gave interviews in which they ‘opened up’ about their struggles. Such public emoting made fuddy-duddy monarchists nervous, yet a new generation of royal PR operatives and suck-ups saw the future. The royals were appealing to a younger audience, cleverly rebranding the monarchy for a new age in which it is OK to not be OK. Move over, stiff-lipped oldies, the Windsors were moving on. Then Harry married

Which TV interviews have attracted bigger audiences than Harry and Meghan’s?

Good for the goose The government indicated that it will ban foie gras, out of animal welfare concerns. While it is often thought of as a French product, its origins have been traced back to Egypt in 2500 bc — thanks to a bas-relief at the Necropolis of Saqqara outside the ancient city of Memphis. The painting depicts workers holding geese around the necks and feeding them — although there is no great sign of force being used. Viewer discretion ITV reported an audience of 11 million for Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. In the US 17 million were said to have watched. What are the previously most-viewed

Portrait of the week: Harry and Meghan’s interview, Piers Morgan’s resignation and Biden’s pets in the doghouse

Home The world was agog, some in tears, some in synchronised toe-curling, as the Duchess of Sussex and her husband shared their sufferings with Oprah Winfrey. In America 17 million watched; in Britain 11 million. The Duchess spoke of Disney’s Little Mermaid; seeing it, she had exclaimed: ‘Oh my God she falls in love with the prince and because of that she loses her voice.’ She said that three days before her wedding at Windsor, she had been married ‘in our backyard’, with just three of them, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. She said she had considered suicide and that the royal family had taken her passport, keys and driving

What the Oprah interview means for the monarchy

An institution that weathered and survived the abdication crisis and the aftermath of the death of Diana Princess of Wales is now left reeling by a two-hour long programme on primetime American television. It’s a broadcast in which the grandson of a queen and his wife made crystal clear that marrying into the British royal family in the 21st century is no fairytale. It’s a one-sided account of Megxit that will incense those who insist they did try to help the newest Windsor The claim of racism is one that will endure. No Palace spin can erase it from the collective memory. The charge is that one of Harry’s relatives asked

Hollywood can’t believe Harry’s dissed Queen Oprah

Santa Monica is a soothing place to be locked down. I moved here from New York for four months in November with my two adult kids after I lost my beloved husband, Harry Evans. I couldn’t face the task of finishing a book in our empty country house where for years we’d shown each other our pages at the end of the day and laughed over chicken pot pie. Meanwhile in Manhattan, I was tired of pretending that freezing outdoor dining, with buses barrelling past, was like sitting on the sidewalk at Les Deux Magots in Paris. With the California sun on my back at breakfast, and the orange trees

Megxit and the War of the Waleses

A 99-year-old prince is in hospital. His 94-year-old wife is displaying an almost childish delight as she continues to dip her toe in our Covid imposed virtual world and unveils a statue from the comfort of her drawing room. The pandemic is just the latest extraordinary experience shared by a monarch and her consort. Some have been particularly painful and lingering. They’re a couple who bear the scars inflicted when relationships disintegrate. However, the lessons of Charles and Diana haven’t yet been learnt by their family. The War of the Waleses 2.0 is following a familiar, unpleasant path. The War of the Waleses 2.0 is following a familiar, unpleasant path

The monarchy failed Harry and Meghan

It will be a saddened Prince Harry who will digest the verdict of much of the British media on the denouement to Megxit. In the eyes of most of those who write about the Windsors, the Queen is above reproach and the couple who exiled themselves are once again found wanting. Their West coast inspired talk of service being ‘universal’ is the latest entry on a charge sheet of sins they’ve committed against a venerated institution. To Harry and Meghan’s critics – and they have plenty – the equation is simple. If millions of Netflix and Spotify dollars are pouring into your bank accounts, you can’t be opening fetes in

Melanie McDonagh

Harry, Meghan and the nature of public service

Well, the ways have parted. That 12-month revision of the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for California (via Canada) has been expedited by, it would seem, the decision of the couple to share all with Oprah Winfrey. There was, according to the Mail’s well-informed Royal correspondent, Richard Kay, an hour-long conversation between Her Majesty and Harry, which ended with the sentiment: sorry, it’s in or out mate. Remarkably the two parties couldn’t even come up with a joint statement to give the illusion of amity. The Queen’s statement is especially choice: Following conversations with the Duke, the Queen has written confirming that in stepping away from the