Feature, Musings —01.10.2023 01:37 PM
—My latest: your Royal Hypocrite-ness
When you’ve concluded that the media are “destroying our mental health,” is it a good idea to then do multi-platform media interviews on multiple continents?
When “public pressure” about your private life is causing you “drama, stress and tears,” do you then turn around and agree to participate in an intimate six-part Netflix series about every aspect of your life, including how you apply makeup in one of the five bathrooms at your borrowed California mega-mansion?
When “fearing for our lives,” do you go on the aforementioned Netflix series and chat about whether you’ve got sufficient security, up to and including whether you’ve remembered to lock the doors at night?
Or – my personal favourite – after lamenting over and over (and over) about how it’s “incredibly sad” that family have grown apart, do you write a book detailing how your brother criminally assaulted you, or that your step-mum leaked stories about you, or that the rest of the family thought dressing up as a Nazi was really funny?
No, of course you wouldn’t. You don’t typically say one thing in front of a global audience of millions, and then – days later – go and do the polar opposite in front of a global audience of millions. Because you’re a normal person. You’re sane.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex – Harry Mountbatten-Windsor and Meghan Markle – no longer appear to be sane, however. With the publication of Prince Harry’s magnum opus this month, the pair have elevated humble-bragging to an art form.
You know what humble-bragging is, don’t you? The dictionaries define it as “an ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something.” And that’s the on-again, off-again Royal couple all over, ain’t it? They say they don’t want attention – but they would die without attention.
The erstwhile Prince has titled his 416-page book ‘Spare,’ which is sort of funny, when you think about it. Because, after months and months of Harry and Meghan complaining about all the attention they get, and then doing all they possibly can to attract yet more attention, all of us are just saying: “spare us.” Spare us the sanctimony and solipsism and self-pity. Spare us, please.
But they won’t, of course, because these two pampered, spoiled children couldn’t spell “restraint” let alone ever practice it. Eyeball this gem from Harry, and see if you can keep down your lunch:
“[Meghan] sacrificed everything that she ever knew, the freedom that she had, to join me in my world. And then, pretty soon after that, I ended up sacrificing everything I know to join her in her world.”
After reading that, don’t you wish they’d both get on a spaceship, piloted by their neighbor and mother-confessor Oprah, and be rocketed to the outer reaches of space to their brave new new “world,” never to return? I sure do.
Is it sad that the Royals – not just Harry and Meghan – are destroying the monarchy? Not really. They’ve all been busily dismantling their reputations for years, now, with an endless torrent of tawdry, seamy guck about extramarital affairs, sex scandals and racist attitudes. If the monarchy is going to die, however, should it finally do so at the hands of these puffed-up creeps?
Maybe, maybe not. One thing is for certain: it’s now completely obvious that Queen Elizabeth, God bless her, was the glue that held the whole Royal shebang together. With her sad passing, her children and grandchildren – always easy to dislike – have become even more dislikable. They make the villains on Dallas or Yellowstone look like beatified saints.
Will we all keep paying attention? Some will. Harry’s ‘Spare’ door-stopper will be a bestseller, because people always pay attention to plane crashes, not plane landings. But, slowly and surely, Harry and Meghan and the rest of the royal cabal are accelerating their own demise.
Harry and Meghan, you see, demand crucifixion. And, then, once they get it?
They complain about the view.
Warren,
Ah, the root of all evil at work: 100 million £ + 20 million USD.
Frankly, they’re all pretty much to blame but I agree the Sussex duo should bear the largest part of the blame. The British media are far too much in William’s corner. It takes at least two to blow up your world. I’ve run out of fingers counting on this one.
The last blurb I saw was on Eugenie.
I received one of the only Invictus Flags presented in Toronto during the past Invictus Games. I found Prince Harry to be genuine human being and I am really disappointed with the current affair. He has the most to lose in the tear down of the Monarchy.
I am not a Monarchist-their ancestors cut off the heads of my Scottish ancestors who fought with Robert the Bruce and blah blah blah etc.
But the Invictus Flag, which is now resting in dust at a Branch of the RCL is very dear to me.
Long life to Harry, but I see a bucket of sadness coming.
Pipes,
Since literally everyone in Mom’s family, including her is dead, how did we MacKenzies from Stornoway, Isle of Lewis and Harris do? I hope we were right up there with your ancestors. Mine would have a fit: they were all Free Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) and all our lot now are Catholics.
Who are they?
Prior to this book and round of interviews, I thought that a lot of the Harry and Megan haters out there were a bit over the top. But I agree, he’s done himself no favours with this. It comes across (correctly) as narcissistic, self-absorbed and wallowing in a sense of victimhood. How about some perspective? You want a real victim, start maybe with poor people, starving people, people getting bombed and shelled in Ukraine etc etc.
No surprise that earlier today, I saw on the news that his approval rating is at an all-time low.
There’s a reason for that expression that sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. There are times when the wisest thing to do is simply STFU and lay low. But I think he and Megan are products of, and have become addicted to, the celebrity and social media culture that infects our age.
Narcissism, self-absorption, and hypocrisy sell. Just look at Justin.
Definitely no difference but Harry smarter.
It brings to mind the old saying “How can I miss you when you won’t go away?”. I would call her a grifter, except that grifting usually refers to something of a minor scale, and the dough she has received by marrying Harry is way more that she would ever have earned in her acting career. There is no doubt that Harry (and also William) was traumatized by the death of his mother, and he has probably never gotten over it (and the rage towards the media and his family). Mr Kinsella has certainly nailed it though. My personal favourite part of the whole debacle was when Ms Meghan wanted the Toronto Police to provide her with bodyguards and to chase way all the paparazzi outside her apartment. When they demurred, she declared in high dudgeon that she was being stalked by all these sinister types, and they were telling her they were not going to do anything! The nerve! Did they not who they were dealing with! I have often wondered just what it will take take to put the final nail in the Royal Family’s coffin. Maybe this whole disgraceful episode of entitlement will do it.
When the Taliban, British military and American MSM are all united in shitting on your head at the same time, you know you’ve miscalculated.
Setting aside the merits (or lack of ) regarding his shoddy treatment as a B movie walk on in the Royal Family, Harry has dug himself a big hole to climb out of. The passing of his Grandmother brought almost universal admiration and respect for her sense of duty and dedication to her work as Queen. For heaven’s sake, she was 96 and received a new Prime Minister two days before her death. Because of that well deserved respect, Harry appears tone deaf with a poor sense of timing and exhibiting a selflessness that the general public doesn’t need to dwell on.
Prince Harry may be downtrodden now, but I can’t help but wonder if he has factored in his future if his marriage hits a coral reef.
As much as I’m tired of the Meg & Harry show (after, like many, initially supporting them) I do think this implosion of a royal would’ve happened much sooner had society/technology advanced as far as it had earlier. Edward had to renounce a throne because his choice of romantic partner was “unsuitable.” Princess Margaret led a tragic life because of her love life. Prince Charles caused a wreckage of trauma (and arguably death) in his wake because he had to marry the “suitable” partner instead of the woman he wanted to. I admire Her late Majesty the Queen for the elegance and grace that she ruled with but sometimes, if the children are screwups you kind of have to wonder if that mummy deserves part of that responsibility (i.e. the trope of being the parent for everybody else except your own kids). Harry in his book even mentioned his father not hugging him after his dead and him being a passable parent when Diana was alive and ill-equipped to be a single dad when she passed (not without trying, Harry admits). As someone who used to scoff at the idea of generational trauma, I understand much better now that successive generations of hurt children can hurt children and so as much as I left the Sussex train long ago, I can understand that this is just a manifestation of something much older and darker.
Meh – maybe, but probably not. I, for one, am tired of every generation blaming the one before – and most notably the parents. Humans are sentient beings, and have tremendous ability to overcome difficulty circumstances and perservere.
Tell the “my mommy was mean to me” story to the millions of people around the world who suffer during war, famine, extreme poverty or other fundamental challenges. Waking up in a warm house, with all the food you could eat, and complete safety should go a long way – even if mommy and daddy didn’t hug you as much as they should.
agree with Steve T. There are plenty of people with near perfect parents who turn out to be absolute numbskulls and vice versa.
Tons.
You can’t keep your family united when you make all your disagreements public.
We watched Harry selling his book on Colbert last night, working the crowd like a pro. Oh, it’s all so scandalous that he and Megan are just being rich celebs in America getting richer. Nothing new here at all. His mum is in heaven watching over them and just loving every bit of it.
Also, we thank Arron Banks above for mentioning ‘generational trauma’, something “royals” everywhere have been blithely inflicting on our world for centuries. Harry is just a relatively minor act in that brutal program.
I actually watch Colbert since he started regularly for a bunch of reasons.
1. he is actually funny
2. he has great musical guests
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meRp-CRyV28
A must listen if you are a fan of OMD and New Order
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN0PGJneSUM
3. no question that he is a leftie but he doesn’t “hate” his enemies like many do(why Baldwin T doesn’t stuff doesn’t work and the new guy on SNL does)
4. he has a soft spot for people like Dana Carvey because he basically gave him his start and knows the poor guy has to keep his true views on politics quiet or the dumbass woke mob will shut him down. This is a great podcast if you are a fan of SNL:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fly-on-the-wall-with-dana-carvey-and-david-spade/id1603639502
5. Can’t stomach the US media so I get my leftie talking points and news from him instead of CNN. He would get the daily memo so I am totally up to date. Get the serious view from PBS on The Newshour. The rest of it is just silly propaganda.
The Harry interview was pretty sympathetic and I considered that maybe there is another side to the story. Not curious enough to read the book though. If you think and Harry and his fans are a bunch of dumbasses, his audience(otherwise known as a cross section of the democratic base) LOVED him. So there you go. Draw your own conclusions.
The other thing that is good about Colbert is that he will(reluctantly) mock Biden when he deserves it and his Corvette defense regarding his issues with the librarians deserved said mocking.
The story and hypocrisy gets funnier and funnier(particularly Joe’s pre-election comments when he knew he had a problem) and as far as the MSM’s “but this is different defense”, it is still early although the party line is that MSM found this story(on the talk shows today, described as such) is also quite funny because I didn’t think such a thing existed.
This piece and your unsolicited advice to the government regarding TikTok – 3 point play and one all the way from the county!
Harry and Megan have as little to offer the world as do other vacuous, celebrity trash like the Kardashians and the Trudeaus.
“They made you a moron for England’s bidding” – Sex Pistols
With apologies to her royal majesty, RIP.
Kardashians 2.0
“I’d crucify them.
Head down and feet up like St Peter.
during halftime of the Monday night football game.”
-George Carlin
Who cares?:- let’s just ignore him in favor of dealing with more pressing problems such as extreme housing shortages and medical shortages being aggravated by an out-of-control immigration policy. We’ve got a prime minister who is a sociopathic ventriloquist’s dummy with a pretty face and a head full of sawdust and scrambled eggs and a deputy prime minister who is the granddaughter of a Ukrainian Nazi war criminal who is cannibalizing our military to send billions to her cousins in a foreign country and a student prime minister who runs around screaming slogans from the “Little Orange Book” of obsolete NDP slogans that were abandoned before he was born and his big ambition in life is to be a Liberal “groupie” and the prime minister’s “personal comfort boy”:- seriously folks, we’ve got our very own “made-in-Canada” “soap opera” right here which is much better than anything Prince Harry could write about!
Well okay
My friends in the LCBO parking lot were saying the same thing on NYE.
Warren – I agree with you on this topic
As I watched the interviews with Prince Harry and Stephen Colbert, Anderson Cooper and Michael Strahan – I was struck by his grief and subsequent trauma from the death of his mother at such a young age – my husband died on Christmas Day in 1999 when my children were 11 and 13 – they are now 34 and 36. Right now I am at a resort in Arizona and I left my fiance here to be with my daughters in Calgary as Christmas time is a sensitive time for them.
It has been fascinating watching not just the usual white guys of a certain age losing their proverbial shit over the publication of this book in the last few weeks. Finally, amidst the culture wars, something everyone can agree on…oh, but what is this, Spare ( compared by A.N. Wilson, who to be fair was doing the “grumpy old man” schtick when he was barely out of his 20s, to Mein Kampf. Get out much Mr. Wilson?), is racking up bookstore sales that make lukewarm Christmas biz a distant memory. Or as Sidney Lumet once said when Daniel, , his adaptation of the EL Doctorow novel and meditation on 80s ne0-con circle jerkery, tanked at the box office: “Somebody voted for Ronald Reagan”. When it comes to overwrought kvetching about how unfair life is, Spare has nothing on Douglas Coupland’s Generation X.